Salespeople are infamous for making others feel bad. They cold call complete strangers to judge their business decisions and make them feel sorry and stupid for choosing their current provider. They feed on every negative emotion to get the only thing that matters: the sale. They treat their prospects like numbers, instead of living, breathing people. Unsurprisingly, people find salespeople annoying, pushy, and rude. Nobody likes them, and nobody likes buying from them.

People buy from people. The only way to connect with your prospect is to act like a person instead of a salesperson, and treat them like a person instead of a sale. Like you, your prospects have emotions, which are often overlooked by salespeople who use old world techniques like sales scripts and automated messages. By addressing these human emotions and using them to create a positive, personal atmosphere, you can create an experience that is best for making the prospect your friend and your loyal customer.

Salespeople believe that making a prospect angry about their current supplier will somehow make themselves look good. They try to find the pain that the prospect is experiencing in their current situation, and think that exposing that pain will make the prospect want to switch suppliers. It doesn’t work this way! Pressing the prospect’s hot buttons and stirring up negative emotions will make their experience with you negative. You’ll succeed at making the prospect angry, but they’ll be angry with YOU! All the painful emotions they experience with you will actually push the prospect farther from the sale. It will also make the status quo look pretty good. The prospect will choose to do nothing and you will lose the prospect and the sale! The key to connecting with your customer is in creating an emotional situation that will lead to change. Show your prospect that it is better for them to change than to remain with the status quo. Creating this emotion is a bit more complex, and is not as easy (or overused) as the old world technique. It requires being less abrasive, and allowing the customer realize (on their own) the painful reality of their situation with their current supplier. If they are unhappy with their current supplier, they will find the pain on their own. They don’t need your help exposing it!

Salespeople put their reasons for selling before a customer’s reason for buying. Let’s be honest, your customers don’t get as excited about your product as you do. In fact, most salespeople sell things that are pretty ordinary and not very interesting. Because of this, the only way to sell your product is to figure out what could motivate your customer to buy it! Through intriguing questions and engaging conversation, you can learn about your customer personally and determine the specific benefits they would gain from purchasing your product. Your job is to get the customer to visualize these benefits. Your creative and engaging visualization will create positive emotion and make their experience with YOU a good one! When they visualize how rewarding your product is, they will find the motivation needed to create a change and buy from you!

Salespeople don’t consider their prospect’s fears. Any important decision is often accompanied with fear. Before your prospect can act on their motivation to buy from you, you must first eliminate their fear of changing the status quo. The only way to eliminate fear is to identify it, and the only way to identify it is through engaging conversation. You must make every effort to truly understand your prospect in order to help them overcome this fear. Change can be hard, but your prospects will look forward to it if you make it seem appealing and worth their while! By understanding and responding to your prospect’s emotions, you can create a positive atmosphere. This will motivate and encourage your prospect to be unafraid of change and to buy from you!