Why's It Important that "Prospects Buy Emotionally"?

Joe Marr, Sandler Training Center - Ann Arbor

www.sandlerannarbor.com

734-821-4830

You may have heard that people make buying decisions emotionally, but what does that mean to your selling efforts?  Is it reasonable to expect that prospects should be emotionally involved in the sale?  What do sales gurus mean when they say that people make buying decisions emotionally, and why should it matter to your business?  Knowing prospects buy emotionally is important so you can take advantage of this fact to prompt more buying decisions, and here is one explanation why.

Three Egos to Please

When sales guru David Sandler was developing his "Sandler Selling System" he adopted Transactional Analysis (TA) as the human relations model to describe why people act the way they do.  TA theory defines three ego states we all have within us that influence our behavior; the Parent, the Adult, and the Child.

The Parent ego state is that part of us that helps us sort out things such as what is good and bad, right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, the ethical, moral, subjective.

The Adult ego state is the logical, analytical, rational part or our psyche that helps us weigh pros and the cons, pluses and minuses, upsides and downsides, the technical, tangible, objective.

The Child ego state is that emotional part of us that draws from the experiences and programming we received while groping, drooling and stumbling up to our sixth birthday. TA theory purports that by the time we are six years old, we have experienced and stored a wide range of emotions that influence us throughout the rest of our lives.  So it's the Child state that is responsible for many of the decisions we make; not just buying decisions.  It's that six-year-old in us who, feeling a particular emotion at a particular time says, "gimme this", "gimme that" or "let me do it!"

The Child Starts It

Sandler recognized that the Parent wasn't going to judge whether a purchase was appropriate or not, and the Adult wasn't going to weigh the pluses and minuses of the purchase or the pros and cons of a particular vendor until the Child said, "give it to me!" Getting the Child to express that desire is the key to finding compelling reasons for doing business.  Getting the prospect emotionally involved in the sale doesn't mean they have to be emotional; unhappy, angry, distraught, fearful, or any other specific emotion, or that they even have to express an emotion.  It simply means that it's effective, and motivating to get their inner child to say, "I want it."

So what gets the child to say, "I want it"?  Getting them to discover something they didn't know can do it, helping them to see their situation from a different perspective, casting doubt on their current condition, can do it, too.

In these cases, their Child will say, "I want to know what they know", "I want to do what they can do" or "I want to have what they have."

Then The Parent and The Adult, Come In

Sandler recognized that getting the prospect's Child involved wasn't the whole answer, and led him to the second part of the observation.  "People make buying decisions emotionally; they justify those decisions intellectually."

At some point, the prospect's Parent state is going to ask, "Do you really need this?" and "Are you sure you're not acting too impulsively?"  And the prospect's Adult state is going to ask, "Can you afford this?" and "Do you really have the time for this?"  As a result of these questions a prospect will have second thoughts and a sale that was "in the bag" is put on hold.

The Child Needs Adult and Parental Involvement

This is why it's important to thoroughly explore the intellectual factors to the sale like money issues, such as return on investment, and process issues like decision making structure and criteria, before any prospect is truly qualified.  From the prospect's perspective, these steps allow the Parent and Adult to be involved in the process so they can build a case for themselves and their organization for making the purchase. The purchase that is really driven from behind, by their Child saying: "I want it, I WANT IT!"

Joe Marr is a public speaker, sales and management consultant and trainer, and runs the Sandler Training Center – Ann Arbor.  To reach him call: (734) 821-4830 or visit his website at: www.sandlerannarbor.com

© 2010 Marr Professional Development Corporation