Previously, I wrote about an incident at a travel agency that prompted me to develop a presentation titled “SELLING AND BUYING IS EMOTIONAL.” Today, I would like to give you a few salient points from that presentation. Our lives revolve around many different emotions, and I cannot think of anything we do that is not influenced by emotion. Whether positive, negative, or neutral, there is an emotion that drives all our actions or inactions. Think about everything you do every day and the emotion you felt at the time. What was it that motivated you to act or not act? You may not realize there was an emotion but there certainly was one that affected you. Think about this carefully.
Selling and Buying are always emotional.
The travel agent incident was a clear example. As the seller, the staff’s emotion towards me was surely very negative. She had no desire to help and no desire to sell. She seemed upset (emotion) about being interrupted and that was very plain and evident. As a buyer, I was surprised (emotion) but mostly shocked (emotion) to be received in this manner. This built up a very negative emotion in me to further engage or interact with the staff. That emotion caused me to turn around and walk out. While I lost a chance to learn about the European cruise, there are many other travel agencies to help me. This agency lost a chance to sell and to make a sale. What was most discouraging is that the staff seemed not to care at all about this. She rid herself of the interruption and the prospect walked out so she can continue to do whatever she was doing prior to my arrival. Being upset, surprised, and shocked were the emotions that day for two people.
I have presented many times on the topic of “Why do People Buy?” Why do you think people buy whatever they buy? As a young salespeople, we learn very quickly that people BUY because,
1. They have a Need
2. If they do not have a Need, they have a PERCEPTION of a Need
3. They do not have a reason not to buy
You will see me refer to this concept many times in my articles pertaining to selling. Think about this, does anyone really need what you are selling? When I was at Ocean Park, I asked the team many times, “How many people wake up in the middle of the night and say they MUST buy a ticket and go to Ocean Park the next day?” This question normally was answered with sarcastic inuendoes and laughter. Perhaps, some did not even understand the question. The realistic and truthful answer was very few or no one. Yet, in fiscal year 2014/2015, the annual attendance at the park was 7.5 million. How did that happen? Annual attendance started to rise in 2001 and each year thereafter from approximately 3 million to 7.5 million in 2015.
Emotions are behind every decision we make in our professional and personal lives.
We will explore more into the concept of emotions in the next article. What emotions drive salespeople and what emotions are behind prospects that provoke the purchase?
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