Let's Get Emotional

Here's a bold statement, but one I'm willing to stand behind: forget about appealing to your prospect or client logically. In sales, appealing to logic comes a (way) distant second to appealing to their emotions. To illustrate this, I'm going to tell you a story about some college kids who learned this and put it to the test.

The students all got together and agreed before class started that if the professor moved to the right of the classroom, to the student's right as they were facing the classroom, the students would sit up and pay close attention. They would be very quiet, smile, and nod approvingly at the professor. But if the professor moved to the left of the classroom, the farther left he went, the students would cut up, act out, throw things, look away from the professor and act disinterested.

As the class began and the professor began to speak, the students followed through with their plan. They noted that after about half an hour the professor was practically glued to the wall on the right side of the room. And the students, as agreed, were eager to hear everything, listening excitedly.

The next day, they decided that they would do the exact same thing but just reverse it. So class began and what they did is as the professor would move to the right, which he started right off towards the right of the room, they immediately would cut up and act up and act disinterested and as the professor would go to the left of the room, they would act interested and they would do what they should. It took not too long and the professor was pegged over into the left of the room.

The professor was absolutely unaware of what was going on (on the conscious level) but was intensly affected by them (subconsciously).

How did this shake out? We are very approval oriented. We love to be smiled at and encouraged and loved. We really like knowing that we are having a good impact on people. We like it when people are interested in what we're saying. These are all emotional responses.

How would you like to be able to affect people in that same way and get them doing things and responding to you in ways that up to now has been happenstance?

Something very important to remember when you're selling is that people are led to make decisions based on their emotions. These emotions bring people to their decisions and logic cements or breaks that decision. Logic is a very minor part. Each person is slightly different, but generally, decision making is based 80-85 percent on emotion and 15-20 percent on logic.

A person who makes their living persuading but can't use emotions well will most likely never make much money, at least the cards are stacked strongly against them. In other words, a person who can make strong logical arguments but is not adept at utilizing emotion has the cards strongly stacked against them.

So how do we do this? Well, stay tuned for an upcoming article for more information about getting to your prospect's and client's emotions.

Article Source: http://www.articlesfeed.com

Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of affluent prospects using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques.

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