Emotional Selling

Most salespeople are excited about the products they sell and the company they represent. However, many hesitate to admit they make a living as a salesperson. Your attitude toward yourself, your prospects, your product, your company, and the selling profession will often determine whether you make the sale. Learning emotional selling is the ticket to a high-performance career.

Enthusiasm sells. Selling is a transfer of emotions. If I can get you to feel as excited about my product or service as I am, chances are we can do some business.  We sell when we transfer our feelings for what we’re selling to our prospects.

The role of the local Radio advertising salesperson is rapidly changing. We begin from a position of respect in the community. We are the people who entertain and inform the community. We’ve been there for over 100 years with news, weather, sports, community affairs, obituaries, and birthdays.

Listeners often use terms of affection to describe why they listen to their favorite Radio stations.

We are leaders in the community.

No other medium has the mass reach of Radio advertising. No other medium even comes close to the level of consumer acceptance.

With consolidation, most salespeople represent four or five different Radio stations in a market. With the Internet, Radio salespeople can now offer digital advertising services like Connected TV, digital display advertising, and more.

Most digital advertising sales are not Nielsen-dependent. It doesn’t matter how big or small your listening audience is. It matters who gets to the prospect first!

Here are ten ways to begin Emotional Selling.

1. Tell People You’re Excited. Simply telling the people you meet how excited you are is the most effective way to sell with emotions. When someone asks, “How are you doing?” say something exciting like “Super Fantastic” or “Better than Good” or anything other than “Okay” or “I’m getting by” or “so so.”

   Just that little technique can set the stage for a more positive and productive encounter. When you walk into the room with a great, big, positive attitude, other people can’t help but like it. We have a lot of fun with the “Super Fantastic” response. I say it in about a thousand different ways, every time with a little different emphasis on this or that syllable, always loud and with animation.

2. Determine the True Felt Needs of the Customer with an Effective Customer Needs Analysis. This really must be at the top of the list because you can’t proceed with any solutions-based proposal if you don’t have an agreement with the prospect as to what you’re trying to accomplish and why it is important to find a solution. This may sound more like intellect than emotion, but as you’ll come to learn, the more you probe, the reasons why it is important to find a solution are always emotional.

   Just think about it yourself. How many prospects respond with a ho-hum attitude when you talk about how advertising can increase their sales? It’s almost like they aren’t even listening. How often have you heard “I have all the business I can handle”? Once you know the real “felt need” and its worth to the prospect, you can return to that objective/reason whenever the prospect needs a pep talk.

3. Reach an Agreement on How To Measure Success. If you listen to your Roy Williams tapes, he is very adamant that there is a difference between success and results. This may appear to be an intellectual sales step, but I believe that, by the very definition, this is an emotional sales step. I might be splitting hairs here, but success is achieving a goal; results are the outcome of some actions.

   People often exclaim, “Ah, success at last.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say, “Ah, results at last.” At the Wizard of Ads, success is measured in gross sales. Why? Because of the three worlds of the business owner, we can only influence the world outside his front door, the world of perceptions and feelings.

4. Use Testimonial Tapes or Testimonial Letters. This is an emotional sales technique because as the prospect listens to or reads the testimonial, their imagination works overtime, asking, “Will this work for me?” The prospect goes through an emotional checklist or a mental comparison of their situation with what they know about the customer in the testimonial.  When they hear what you have done for other customers, your prospect starts to feel comfortable that you can help them, too.

5. Use Spec Commercials. Spec commercials (spots are something on your tie) can be one of the best emotional sales tools in your toolbox when done properly. The spec commercial must say the right thing. The key to advertising success is saying the right thing over and over and over and over until someone has a triggering event. That’s how we bring buyers and sellers together.

   Running out to a prospect with a poorly planned spec commercial could damage your chances with that prospect forever. When you prepare a carefully crafted spec commercial that says the right thing, the prospect will begin to feel comfortable that you are beginning to understand how they feel about their felt need. You are building up their confidence level in you. When you play the spec commercial, you can ask the prospect a trial closing question like “Do you feel like that commercial says the right thing”?

6. Use a Flip Chart to Present Your Ideas. The Flip Chart can’t help but be an emotional sales tool because it sets the stage for a presentation. A presentation is inherently emotional. The presentation sets the stage for emotional responses that result in larger sales. Take the example of the head of lettuce versus the bag of salad. The presentation of the head of lettuce as a bag of salad brings four times the money. Why does Starbucks charge four times the money Duncan Doughnuts gets for a coffee cup?

   The reason is the presentation. Why does a Tavern on the Green in Central Park martini cost more than a whole bottle of vodka? It’s all in the presentation.   A well-crafted presentation is emotional because you tell a story about how your plans can satisfy the true felt need of the prospect. Your presentation will articulate the benefits the prospect described in the Customer Needs Analysis.

   Your presentation will stimulate the prospect’s imagination of how great life will be when you satisfy their felt need. At the end of your presentation, you can look the prospect in the eye and say, “How do you feel about that”?

7. Get the On-Air Personalities Involved in the Presentation. We are in show business. The on-air folks are celebrities to our listeners. When people describe their listening preferences, they say, “I love to listen to KLOS” or “WLS plays my favorite music.” They use terms of affection to describe their feelings about our Radio stations.

   Ask the on-air folks if they’ll go with you to see a prospect. Ask them to write a note to the prospect inviting them to advertise on the station. Get the personalities to record a message to the prospect describing what their show is all about and invite them to advertise on the show. The on-air folks can play a very emotional role in the process of selling.

8. Invite the Prospect to the Radio Station for a Tour. People are intrigued by Radio. Ninety-four out of every one hundred people listen to the Radio every week. Most people start their day listening to the Radio when their clock Radio wakes them in the morning. The average person spends about three hours listening to their favorite Radio stations daily. We are an emotional medium. When you invite a prospect to “come down and take a tour,” they walk right into an emotionally charged behind-the-scenes experience.

   Make sure you do it right. Send out a note to everyone the day before and on the morning of the tour. Tell everyone on the staff who is coming by name and by company. If there is a special message you want to convey, tell your coworkers and set the stage; let them know what you’d like them to say.

9. Make Yourself See New Prospects Every Day. I feel like I can win everyone over to my point of view. I grieve when I can’t. But I don’t grieve too long because I’m wasting time not getting on to the next person who will enjoy what I have to offer. The sooner I meet new people, the sooner I will have my next success. Ensure you are loaded with your latest sales materials and Playbook. When you show up excited about the problem-solving power of your Radio station, you will get a positive emotional response from your prospects. They will be interested in learning more. People are looking for answers now more than ever before.

10. Have Fun! Emotional Selling is all about feeling good about your job. This is the most important. Local advertising sales is the best job in town. All we have to do is go around town and introduce people to how we bring buyers and sellers together. Radio is an integral part of the community. Digital advertising is the new frontier. We don’t have to lift heavy objects or dig ditches. All we have to do is go around and meet people, share our excitement, and ask people if they want to join us.

I hope these ideas about emotional selling motivate you today toward more enthusiastic activity. Check out this article on Making a Good First Impression.

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