How to Uncover your Prospects Emotional Buying Triggers

There is an old saying that say’s, “People will buy on emotion, but justify their decision intellectually.”

If you study marketing and sales, you will probably discover this saying has it’s roots in copywriting. The type of copywriting I’m referring to is sales copywriting. The type of direct mail advertising that some of the early pioneers in marketing and sales wrote.

Sales copywriting is basically selling via the written word. You don’t have the ability to talk with someone and ask questions, so you have to write everything out.

Sales copywriters have known for years that emotion is what triggers someone to buy a product or service. Unfortunately the majority of sales people have no clue about the emotional triggers that cause people to buy their products and services.

In this article we are going to cover one thing, the emotions you are looking to uncover in your sales calls.

The Buying Emotions

I’m going to over simplify the buying emotions to save some space here. Your basic buying emotions are pleasure and pain.

Your buying emotion of pleasure is going to show up in moving you towards something. The something you move towards is usually a goal, a target, or objective. Basically your emotions are driving you towards something that you think is better than what you have now.

Your buying emotion of pain is going to show up in moving you away from something. The something you move away from is usually a frustration, a problem, or something that is hurting you in some way. Your emotional response is that you want to get away from something that is hurting you, and you want to do it fast.

Between the two emotions, you will hear people tell you pain is the stronger of the two. I agree with this…..up to a point.

I can think of hundreds times on my sales calls where prospects would share pain with me. And I mean pain that was really causing them issues and frustrations both personally and professionally. Yet, many of they never ended up doing business with me?

Now that could be for a variety of factors, but I have heard similar stories from others about finding pain with their prospects. You find your prospects pain, but they still don’t buy?

That has lead me to believe that people who just push you to find pain on your sales call are only getting half of the equation. The other half is to get your prospect to share the pleasure they want to move towards.

If you only get pain on your sales call, you have only accomplished half of the emotional buying triggers.

The Challenge of Pain

While you know pain is a very powerful emotion, it can be a difficult one for people to share with a stranger. And on a first sales call with your prospect, you are indeed a stranger. Why would someone you just met open up to you about something as private as pain, frustration, and other things that may possibly be upsetting them?

You may have great rapport with your prospect, and even get them to share pain with you. But you may accidentally cause them to associate that pain with you. If they associate you as the person who had them share their pain, you may be seen as part of their problem.

Your prospect may not want to openly share their biggest issues with you.

How to Help Your Prospect Share Emotions

What I have found is that it?s much easier to have your prospect share the emotion of pleasure. This is discovered by helping your prospects think through and share their goals with you.

This conversation is much easier for your prospect to have with you. There is no uncomfortable feeling of pain, and frustration. This may also be the first time they have verbally shared their goals with someone else.

If you are indeed the first person that has helped them openly share their goals, you will now be seen in a whole new light. A light that let’s them see you as a “Trusted Advisor” versus someone just trying to sell them something.

There are other skills you need to develop beyond just helping your prospect share the pleasure side of their emotions. It would be a half hearted effort if you did not also help them share the obstacles to their goals, and the consequences of those obstacles.

If you want to know more about obstacles and consequences, I encourage you to read some of my previous articles dealing with the other elements within the Mini Strategic Plan process.

Now go and help your prospects share their emotional triggers that will cause them to do business with you.