Karen Keller
Triggers are alive and well for everyone! They are part of our memory, there to guide us and sometimes protect us.
Triggers work by way of emotions. When we are exposed to a certain stimuli, and depending on our history, we experience a rush of emotion that tells us how to react.
When you apply emotions to the selling process, one key point is to enter the conversation that is already going on in you prospect’s mind. After that you need to understand the emotions they are experiencing during that conversation.
There are 7 emotions that occur, or some form of them, when a person is making a decision, particularly a decision to say yes. We buy on emotion (desires) and justify using logic.
And you need to know this when you are selling to a prospect.
Capturing the mind of the consumer means learning how to:
- Create a ‘gotta have it’ feeling
- Reduce resistance to the sale
- Instantly establish connection
- Arouse a prospects inner buying desire
- Establish trust in the prospect’s mind
You can accomplish all of this in your sales message. And you can do it ethically and with integrity. There’s no hype, no hypnotizing them, no selling what they don’t need.
It’s all in the language and the words you use. But the unfortunate thing is that most people use words that turn people OFF, rather than ON.
7 Emotional Triggers
Here are the 7 hot buttons (emotions) that you need to push (appeal to) to get your prospect to yes - the ethical way.
1. The first hot button is fear. This is the most powerful hot button. It plays into the reactions that humans want to 1) seek pleasure and/or 2) avoid pain. Remember, the slogan “You May Be Next?” Well, it appeals to the emotional trigger of fear.
First, you need to understand your target. What are their fears? Keep in mind that not all fears are the same for everyone. That’s because people have different experiences with fear, and different interpretations of those experiences.
To make use of the fear button you need to provide a solution. Your solution needs to be one that eliminates doubt, eliminates fear, promotes courage, and maybe encourages risk-taking toward a positive outcome.
2. The second hot button is anger. This is the most frequently experienced emotion.
What’s important to remember about anger is the outcome of it - how it affects someone’s judgment and decision making. What you should be aware of is how anger influences perception, beliefs, ideas, reasoning and ultimately choices - the choices that you are trying to persuade.
You find out what they aren’t satisfied with and how that anger influences their judgment.
The best way to use the anger hot button is to understand it. Again, your powers of observation, eliciting information and tuning in with your intuition are important at this point.
3. The third hot button is greed. These people thirst for the best and the most of everything. But that’s the extreme. We need to realize that greed is a part of all of us in varying degrees. It is still an emotion - one that we try to grow beyond but nonetheless, it does rear its head once in awhile, especially when we are being tempted with certain marketing messages.
This is the “What’s In It For Me?” piece of persuading – aka - WIIFM
It is about fear of the lack, of not having enough or ending up alone, lonely or isolated. So, they believe that unless they have it all no one will want them. They are so desperate for approval, for attention, for acceptance that they will go to great lengths to get it – and that might mean becoming greedy in the process.
Find out what your potential client is lacking. Use your best communication and observation skills to discover what is missing for them.
Next week, read Part 3, where I share the final four hot buttons that you can use to persuade your prospect into saying yes.
