Appealing Emotionally In Business
Kenrick Cleveland
You know what's overrated? Rationality. I know, I know, it's important to have your feet firmly planted on the ground in order to grow roots, in order to have a foundation, a base from which to work. But in business the idea of rationality has become supreme and I think we've lost something in the transition from 'mom and pop' business to faceless corporations that is an integral part of selling our products or services, especially when dealing with an affluent clientle.
I've discussed in previous articles how to access our clients' and prospect's emotions. Here I'd like to discuss why we should do this. Their emotions and other-than-conscious minds are conduits and our viability as sales people are linked to these conduits.
Our emotions drive us. Core emotions and our DNA are what make us take action. We are primitive beings ruled by the same things our ancient ancestors were ruled by. They didn't have to contend with a bombardment of products or services vying for their business. They worried about the very basics: food, shelter, sex, fight or flight and had no concept of choice, luxury or affluence.
When we interact with a prospect, this should be a thought we hold foremost in our minds: appeal to the core. Gut instincts are far more powerful than the rational mind. Making the rational and the core emotions mesh, is our job.
In an instant, our gut instincts kick into action. In the book 'Blink', Malcolm Gladwell writes about thinking without thinking, that rapid cognition that happens in the blink of an eye. Our rational brains take five times longer to assimilate than do our emotional processes.
Think of this through the frame of how sales used to be and how they are now. At our core we are like cavemen, and on the surface we are incredibly sophisticated. In the last thirty to sixty years, we've seen the 'features and benefits' style of sales and the Dale Carnegie method of sales, both of which were passable for their time. As competition has increased and the marketplace has grown, so has our ability to detect B.S.
The ability to elicit the emotions that feel best--being understood, feeling at ease. . . these are responses we want to duplicate in our clients over and over. By accessing their values, eliciting their criteria, infusing everything we do with honesty, integrity and sincerity, and having a product or service we believe in to combine that with, this creates an emotional alchemy that is easy to sell.
At this point in our evolution (depending on your perspective) we have an incredible amount of choice. There are products and services available to us that even a generation ago, weren't even dreamed up. Those of us who know how to access the core of our prospect's emotions are going to be the ones capable of rising to the top in our given fields. By elevating emotions and partially bypassing rationality, we find ourselves with incredible persuasion power.
Kenrick Cleveland teaches strategies to earn the business of wealthy clients using http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion strategies.
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