If you want to inspire action, you’ve got to evoke emotion. This is an important thing to consider when we look to inspire others to action. Whether it be our children, our spouse or our consumers. If you think about anything in your life that has compelled you to act there is usually a strong emotional component behind it. Whether that emotion be humour, anger, desire, empathy, fear, greed or frustration I think you will find that almost everything we do is triggered by emotion. As a professional sales person this concept is the key to moving your customers to action.
The question is how do we do this? When I tried to tackle this conundrum I started thinking about some of the things that have moved me to action in the past. The one that stands out the most from an emotional angle for me is the Corus Stollery Childrens hospital Miracle Network Radiothon. This year is no different and I think if you have ever heard it you will wholeheartedly agree. Corus Radiothon is a live two-day broadcast on CISN Country 103.9 from the lobby of the Stollery Children’s Hospital. Its sister stations, 925 FRESH FM and 630 CHED support Radiothon both off and on-site during the broadcast. Each day from 5:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. these stations generously donate air time, staff and programming to allow the community a glimpse into everyday life at this world-class facility.
Listening to the stories of some of the children and families that the Stollery is absolutely heart wrenching so when they ask you to take action and dig deep in your wallet you are hard pressed not to contribute. This year they raised a whopping $1.4 million for the Stollery. I know for me when I hear the telethon now I quickly change the station and pull out my wallet. Far too emotionally charged to listen too without having to pull over and grab a tissue.
So if you are looking to move a customer to action, find a way to relate to them emotionally. As a mortgage broker one of the scenarios that I have written about before involve a client who called because the RBC was “Screwing him on rate” (his words not mine). He was emotionally charged and I fed into that and talked about what his options were. 1) He could commit to working with me and I’d get him the best deal available or 2) He could take his chances ‘getting screwed’ by the bank. By the end of our conversation he was so emotionally fired up that I’m sure if I owned a bank I would have all of his banking services moved over that afternoon. You can read the full article here.
The point is to find the emotional hot buttons with you clients and how you can serve to either enhance the positive ones or remove the negative ones. If you can emotionally connect with your clients you can create a long term, mutually beneficial relationship.
Share with me some of your successes with emotional connection in the sales process.
