Connecting with buyers emotionally

An article in the April issue of Selling Power magazine talks about new research that reveals a "buying bias based on emotion."

In a new book, Questions that Sell by Paul Cherry, who is senior vice president at Performance Based Selling, much selling misses the boat because it doesn't have a clue as to how buyers really make purchasing decisions. Cherry's argument, backed by the wave of paradigm-shattering research that has poured out of leading laboratories, is simple. Buyers go by feelings, not logic.

In other words, while all those feature/benefit statements in B2B marketing collateral do indeed play a vital role, it's not what helps salespeople close the sale. "To sell," says Cherry, "you have to learn how to connect with buyers emotionally." Increasingly, marketing and sales is all about connections and less about whether a techno gizmo has dozens of features (most of which we never use anyway). Companies need to learn what "pain" their clients experience in their day-to-day jobs and how a product or service helps alleviate this pain. As B2B marketers, it's our duty to learn what our customers' jobs entail -- and then write copy that addresses these "hidden" yet very real concerns. What do you think?