The term "emotional" may evoke different images but it refers to the ability to induce the brain to construct an emotional response to a particular situation, such as a positive or negative feeling, as well as the emotional responses of others.
To be good at emotional selling, we need to understand how
emotions work on two levels: first, the psychological level, which helps us
conceptually describe emotions through the first-hand experience. Second, the
biological level relates to neuroscience, helping us explain how emotions
function in an incredibly insightful and precise way.
If you want to apply sales techniques based on emotions,
they need to function at these levels. Working on a single level would not make
them effective nor complete.
Emotional selling is a sale technique that influences a
customer's feelings to stimulate a purchasing choice instead of logic or the
features of the item being offered. This technique is used in sales communications
and marketing materials to attract the potential and existing customers.
Using Emotions to Sell
Know your prospects or customers
Lead with emotional triggers like color, sound, smell, etc.
Tell them stories
Create a group or community (tribe)
Inspire
Emotional selling does not only benefit the customer. This particular technique for sales inspires the attitude to serve that salespeople tend to overlooked previously where they focus on just getting a single transaction. This makes salespeople feel like they’re being supportive, and makes the customers experience personalized service and overall makes both parties feel they’re in a win-win situation. It’s not sales per se but more of a meaningful human interaction.
To understand the science behind emotional design and
psychology, let's first look at the basic building blocks of emotions and
feelings. As architects of our experiences, we do not have to be at the mercy
of emotions, and we can learn to master them.
Emotions are mental states triggered by stimuli or feelings
associated with thoughts, behaviors, and pleasure. Our species has evolved from
birth to have emotions, a clever mechanism that includes a complex set of
biological mechanisms designed to protect us.
Emotions affect human behavior and decisions - in subtle
ways that we may not always recognize. Because we have lived side by side with
our emotions for millennia, it can be difficult to truly identify, understand,
and control our emotions.
According to a study by the University of California, San
Diego, it is easier to sell to consumers when they are excited, and emotional
states trump rational thinking. Excitement means that the sympathetic nervous
system increases activity and the brain begins to signal increased production
of hormones. When a person is aroused, their emotions become stronger and can
affect their decision-making ability. Excited people are more likely to make
decisions, including bad ones, according to research.
How do we generate emotions, and how can we construct them
to make a convincing case for constructing a theory around them?
Emotions do not arise from willpower but are built up - in
reactions, triggered by or in response to stimuli. Emotions are constructed by
giving meaning to sensations and making predictions based on past experiences
and concepts.
Brain research shows that when children are exposed to a perceived threat, they trigger a series of chemical and neurological reactions known as stress reactions, activating their biological instincts to fight, freeze, and flee. Chronic stress and anxiety increase cortisol and adrenaline levels, both of which can cause young children to be constantly on their guard. Trauma in the first few years can also cause stress reactions to become so intense that they end when there is no perceived threat.
High thinking skills can also be inhibited by constant
anxiety, which can increase heart rate, blood pressure, and blood flow to the
brain.
An actor working for a psychologist stepped in to ask for an
urgent call, and researchers who wanted to know how positive feelings might
affect helpfulness completed a study of mood manipulation that influences
decision-making. Light, casual emotions and decisions - the meeting can live
side by side, as Andrade and Ariely (2009) have shown. When we make
emotionally-fueled decisions, we tend to continue to use imperfect reasoning
behind them.
A promising research study suggests that the activity of
glial (existing) neurons can be reduced by the release of oxytocin, which in
turn promotes synaptic plasticity. As we now know, this activity can get
largely out of control, but it can also rewire the brain itself. This is
fundamental to learning, and one of the most important aspects of learning is
to clean the nerve space during sleep, repair neurons, and resignal genes. This
network turns on dopamine - the brain regions involved in emotions, cognition,
motivation, and reward.
Positive emotions expand our attention capacity and help us
to use more mental resources, improve access to memory networks and semantic
relationships, and motivate us to think flexibly and efficiently. Instead of
rejecting information as useless or irrelevant, positive emotions set us on the
path to accepting information and recognizing how it makes sense. They help us
to grow positively and build stronger relationships with our friends, family,
colleagues, and other people in our lives.
Incorporating a simple mindfulness practice into your day
can go a long way to keeping your blood pressure low, and also provide an
amazing calming strategy that you can use anywhere, anytime. In time, you will
see the benefits of putting this piece of self-regulation into practice when
things do not go as you would like. This is a great way to regulate your
emotions and behavior by strengthening the parts of the brain that switch off
when you're excited.
Gathering new experiences, whether through a journey, reading a book, watching a film, gaining a new perspective, trying new foods, learning a foreign language, or even learning new words in your mother tongue, offers the opportunity to construct experiences in a new way. This stimulates the brain to develop new concepts and bind old ones, influencing future predictions and behaviors.
Expanded vocabulary can lead to new ideas and new concepts,
which in turn can not only help us to deal better with different circumstances,
but also improve our understanding of the world around us, such as our
relationships with other people, and improve our negotiating skills.
Together, these theories have gathered a large amount of
experimental evidence and are calling for them to be expanded and built on.
So, here are the take home message for selling using emotions…
understand how emotions work on psychological and biological
level
stimulate feelings that leads to purchasing choice instead
of logic or the features
emotional selling benefits the sellers and customers
emotions affect human behavior and decisions-making
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