Have you ever traveled overseas and tried to start a conversation with someone only to have them look at you with a funny face and briskly walk away? Well, that’s exactly how the customer’s brain feels when you present your sales message in a non-brain-friendly manner, except there is no translator to help you, so your company essentially loses money — and not just a dollar or two, but millions in lost sales.
The old model of selling, in a nutshell, was to follow a certain script. You were to present the features and benefits to the prospect and hope that if the script was presented to enough people that eventually someone would buy. Many people would say “how is this ignoring the brain by presenting facts and features and benefits? Doesn’t the brain process information?” And while this may be true to some extent, in an evolutionary sense, the part of the brain that processes analytical information (the neocortex) is the newest part of the brain. If you only pitch information to this part of the brain, you are disregarding the two parts of the brain with the most history and power: the emotional part of the brain and the survival part of the brain.
Selling To The Emotional Part Of The Brain
Emotions are complicated and powerful. They’re even nonsensical at times because the analytical or reasoning part of the brain is separate from the emotional part of the brain.
Now even though the reasoning and the emotional domains of the brain are two separate parts, they are highly intertwined. Think about it, when was the last time that you were super stressed out and upset and made a ton of logical calculated decisions? It doesn’t really happen.
Have you ever been overtired and then gotten short with your partner? Before you know it, you’re arguing over something you can’t even remember because your emotional brain has short-circuited your logical brain.
The same thing happens when you’re tired, hungry, or scared because the emotions override your reasoning. Even when you’re more evolved and can recognize that you’re being illogical, it doesn’t necessarily make the illogical emotions stop in their tracks. It’s only when the emotions are eased that you can think clearly again. This is what happens to your prospects.
No amount of logic will be 100% properly interpreted by your prospect if you’re not tuning into the emotional part of their brain. It is impossible for a customer to fully process the information you’re giving them until their emotion is involved. So if your sales presentation is only based around the features and benefits of your offer instead of painting a clear mental picture where the customer can see a brighter future, then the information you give them will not be received correctly. So pay attention to your prospect, pick up on their emotional cues, and deliver your sales message in a way that appeals to their emotions, as well as their logic.
Selling To The Survival Part Of The Brain
The oldest part of the brain is tuned to survival. This means that fear will consistently overpower every other emotion. Think about it like this: do you ask questions first and then run when you’re scared? Or do you run and think about the situation later after you are safe and you’ve calmed down? What this means is that no matter how good the information is and no matter how well you present it, if ANY part of the customer’s brain does not feel fully secure, then they will not buy from you. To drive this point home further, your prospect lives in a world where their brain is constantly being bombarded with messages, notifications, and more putting them in a constant state of alert. This absolutely affects their sensitivity to sales. Their guard is up and most of your prospects are having sales experiences that break down their trust because they aren’t being sold to in the way that they need to be sold to.
If you assume that every person should be sold to in the same way, then you’re making the false assumption that every person feels safe or scared from the same stimulus. This isn’t true. For example, you might think going bungee jumping would be an epic thrill, but that same idea could cause your neighbor to spiral into an anxiety attack. People have different personalities, different beliefs, and different ways of communicating. When you ignore what makes your prospect who they are, you miss out on millions of dollars in sales. You can say the exact same thing in the exact same way to two different people, and they can have two completely different reactions to what you said. This is why when it comes to sales, you must use brain-friendly and adaptive selling if you want to truly serve your prospect and stop leaving money on the table. Start considering the customer’s personal buying process instead of your selling process and watch your sales skyrocket