A beautiful contradiction in the life of a salesperson.
Whether you’re doing outbound yourself or someone else is on your behalf (be that employees, freelancers or agencies), this principal remains key to building connections with potential clients.
Think back to the last purchase you made….
Before you even checked the cost, did you picture the outcome of you making the purchase?
How did that make you feel? Happy? Excited? Relieved that it would be solving a problem?
I’m no psychologist but I’m confident that, had you not 1st had some sort of positive emotion regarding the potential purchase, you wouldn’t have taken the next step of checking the price and, unless impossible, justifying the cost against the positive outcome which then resulted in you buying it.
Am I right or am I right?
You won’t struggle to find veritable evidence of this online – that’s the nature of buying; most people (BIG caveat – as a father to a neurodiverse child, I recognise that most ND people may well not act in the same way) will only consider a purchase on an emotional level 1st before then rationalising the commercials after.
Not much is difference in the world of B2B sales which is why most successful salespeople will understand that they have to work hard to uncover all of the negative emotions their prospect has with their current situation and then, in context of how their solution can solve their problems, focus on helping the prospect picture all of the happy emotions they’ll be feeling as an outcome.
One major challenge is for the salesperson to remain calm when helping the prospect understand the happy ending (stop it 😉) because it’s natural to think getting excited along with them is the right thing to do but you risk being perceived as ‘salesy’ by doing that. Much better instead to ask them questions which help them tell you about the outcomes e.g.
“I can hear your frustration, sounds like this is a real headache for you?”
“Yes, you could say that!”
“Now you understand how using our product will solve that for you, how might you feel as a result?”
“A big weight off my shoulders and free to focus on what I really need to”
So, to stand a chance of making a connection with a potential client, your focus needs to be on bringing to the surface their emotional state and then, as long as they’re unhappy in some way, putting your solution in context of how it will improve their emotional state.
Then all that’s needed is to get them to commit to spending…easy!
