Using Emotion to Increase Sales

If you are like most business owners and other business leaders of small and mid-sized businesses, at times, you have to put on your sales hat. When you put on your sales hat, your results will go better if your mindset changes from trying to get the desired results by persuading the person you are trying to sell on an intellectual basis. Too many business leaders fail to get the optimum results from their sales efforts because they don’t recognize that to get people to buy, you need to inspire them with more than reason. One of the most powerful ways to inspire them is by uniting your message with an emotion. For example, telling a compelling story in which you weave a lot of information, but also arouse your listener’s emotion and energy.

Persuading with a story is a lot harder than memorizing notes to a PowerPoint presentation. It takes creativity and vivid insight to present an idea within a story format that packs emotional power. When done right, you have harnessed imagination and you are giving the buyer a reason to follow through with the action that you want—the sale. The ideal type of story begs the buyer to make what is sometimes a difficult decision—the decision to take risks.

To do this most effectively, try to find out and understand something about the buyer’s past experiences and current motivations. You need to understand the mind frame and emotional wants of the buyer to frame the type of experience you want to relate in your story—a story that the buyer will embrace. Many business leaders who get great sales results use stories of how, in the past, results of other clients or customers have met their expectations. Pointing out some kind of struggle between the expectation and the need, with some humor that has taken place in that experience, is one of the best ways of uniting your message with an emotion.

Sometimes the best and most effective stories involve true and unfortunate situations, but point to why the listener should not be repeating the mistake made by the teller of the seller. These stories have to be based on facts and do not involve making up stories, exaggeration or manipulation.

It is important to not tell stories that paint your competitor as wearing a black hat. This will cut down on your credibility.