The Second Reason Sellers Avoid Emotions To Their Own Detriment.

A series making the science-backed case for emotions in selling.

In my last post I shared that many sellers avoid emotions because they believe they are at odds with logic. I made a science-backed case that emotions are in-and-of-themselves logical data points with high reliability. Yes, emotion data can have errors, just as math can have errors, but both types of errors can be corrected. Whether you realize it or not, buyers don’t make purchase decisions without emotion-based information impacting the outcome. To underscore this point Dr. James A. Russell states, “Feeling is a form of thinking.” Buyers are thinking with emotions! To ignore this is to increase the likelihood you won’t reach your full selling potential.

Another reason many sellers avoid emotions in selling is they don’t want to manipulate or be perceived as manipulating buyers into decisions.

Can emotions be used to manipulate buyers? Of course. For example, it’s possible to scare someone into buying through fear-based tactics. There’s even an acronym for it in salesーFUD (Fear Uncertainly and Doubt). The reason FUD and other similar tactics work is that emotions are tightly linked to goals. Neuroscientists identify emotions as goal-based mental concepts that give meaning to our experiences. Someone who is fearful generally has the goal of removing the threat to secure safety—and safety is meaningful. Sellers who use these tactics rely on automatic responses to trigger events. They only know push A to get B. So good-intentioned sellers, to avoid being perceived as manipulative, have removed emotions from selling and in the process have removed the mechanism to bridge a buyer’s goal to their product or service. What a shame considering emotions should be incorporated into the sales process to align sellers with buyer’s goals and generate meaningful outcomes. Sellers can even co-construct goals and meaning with buyers through emotions. To do so you need to understand how emotions are created, the purpose they serve and the meaning they provide. We’ll get started down that path in my next article.

Share your thoughts…Keith