You ever wonder why deals can go south so quick, for no apparent reason? Have you ever had a deal that seemed like it was cruising along perfectly when boom, it falls apart. Objections start flying from leftfield; the prospect becomes erratic, they stop meeting commitments, they keep changing their mind and deadlines start slipping.
This craziness is usually the result of too much emotion getting into the sales cycle. When emotion comes through the door, wisdom goes out the window.
When emotion comes through the door, wisdom goes out the window.
Most people suck at making good decisions when they are emotional. Emotion impacts our ability to see things clearly. We can become anxious and unpredictable when too much emotion enters our decision process.
In the world of selling, emotion affects the sale in two ways, when you become too emotional and when the customer becomes too emotional.
When you become too emotional, you push too hard afraid the deal could be crumbling. You negotiate a shitty deal, with a super low price. Salespeople do crazy things when too much emotion enters the sales process. For salespeople, fear is usually the emotion that comes into play, fear of losing the deal, fear of missing quota, fear of not making a commission. Fear is a nasty emotion for sales people to contend with.
To prevent fear from coming in the door, the best thing salespeople can do is build a solid pipeline. The more deals you have in the pipe, the more active deals you have, the less fear there is you won’t make quota, you don’t get the deal or that you won’t make enough money. The best salve for the ailment of fear in sales is the pipeline. The bigger your pipeline, the less room for emotion to come through the door.
When it comes to your customers or prospects emotion is part of the game. Change, by nature, is emotional. Remember, sales is all about change and change is scary. Therefore, the key with your customers and prospects isn’t to keep emotion from coming through the door; it’s to ensure it’s the appropriate emotion. The key is to keep out fear, anger, frustration and sadness and let in happiness, excitement, optimism, calm, and confidence. These emotions work in your favor. Wisdom goes out the door no matter which emotion comes through the door, so the key is to ensure it’s positive emotion.
To get your prospects or customers feeling good and not scared requires you get down and dirty in their business. You need to understand their motivations and the impact of change to them personally. It’s about creating a compelling vision of what could be or a future state and fear and frustration towards the current state. When we anchor our prospects and clients in fear or frustration in the current state we’re using emotion to our advantage. Remember, emotion is inherent to sales because change is inherent to sales. If prospects and customers are going to make emotional decisions, it’s best to have them make emotional decisions in your favor.
Wisdom goes out the window when emotion comes through the door. It’s the way of the world. Therefore, the best salespeople prepare for emotion and know how to keep it from entering their world and how to ensure the positive enters their buyers.