Emotional engagement is not specifically about sales. It helps in sales for the same reason it helps in day to day communication – a person’s emotions and perspectives impact their decision-making.
As the weather changes, one interesting aspect of parenting is telling your child they must wear a coat because it's cold. The response is always the same – “no”, almost as if it's because I said it's cold.
Engagement among humans is rarely 100% objective and rational. It's just more obvious when dealing with children. So the way to get an 8 year old to (want to) wear a coat follows the same process B2B Sellers should use for their Buyers. Reframe the issue into a perspective Buyers care about, and then influence their emotional analysis to your advantage.
But it’s hard. Our rational explanation is SO OBVIOUSLY right that it seems ridiculous to say anything beyond: “it's cold, wear a coat.” For those with the patience to engage without resorting to “because I told you so” (or those with Buyers it doesn’t work on), here’s how I got my son to wear his coat:
“All your friends will be playing during recess. Wall ball, right? What’s annoying in the winter is it's hard to throw the ball far when you have cold hands. When I was in school, I used to put my hands in my pocket while we played so they were warm when I had to throw. I hated making bad throws…. What do you think?”
“I want to wear my coat. Can I also bring gloves just in case?”
“Sure, if that's what you want.”
My 8 year old son doesn’t care about the cold. So I focused on what he cares about – playing and his friends. But that's not enough. To make it emotional, I hinted at the possibility of making a bad throw in front of his friends. That is simply unacceptable to an 8 year old. The jacket might not be cool but he’ll wear it any day to avoid making a fool of himself on the playground. I didn’t sell him on the jacket – he sold himself to make sure he could throw the ball well.
Of course, once he came home, he agreed it was cold and the coat kept him warm. But just like sales, I needed him to agree BEFORE he went outside and needed it.
At the time of a sale, the “problem you solve” usually isn’t a priority for your Buyers. Instead, enable the goals your Buyers already desire and they will sell themselves.
