Have you ever gone into a newsagent, picked up a magazine and flicked through the pages for a while, read the index, read some of the pages in the magazine? From my research your answer will almost certainly be yes, at some time. So let me ask you why did you stand there reading the magazine instead of just saying to yourself, 'I've read this magazine before, I think I'll buy it?' The answer is, because you wanted to know you would get value for your money. You wanted to know more about what content might benefit or interest you in your life. And you really wanted to know if the magazine was worth your $5 or so! After all $5 is $5. You don't want to risk throwing it away, do you? So instead you stand there reading for a while, as long as you need to (without feeling guilty or locking eyes with the shop owner), to see if you can establish enough VALUE for your money. Could it be that you feel an APREHENSION about spending your money? Of course you do, you 'feel' a risk anytime you part with money. And apprehension is an emotion. Let me give you another example of why there is always an emotion present in a customer in a sales scenario... Have you ever told a lie to a sales person? Of course you haven't, is your first reactive answer. But think about this, have you ever entered a shop and been asked if you need help then replied with 'no thanks, I'm just looking?' That's the knee jerk reaction to the most common question in sales, 'can I help you'. Now, have you ever thought soon after replying with that knee jerk reaction that you wish you hadn't of said that? If so then you've just told a lie. And why do you tell small, little, white lies? Could it be that's you're afraid of sales people... because they might pressure you into making a rash decision you regret later on? Its funny but they say sales people tell lies to customers. Maybe we learn how to lie as sales people by telling lies to sales people when we're the customers! Don't get serious on me here. This is just poking fun at human nature, but the lesson is there is emotion present in customers when they talk to sales people. Here's one final example... When we're customers and we look for a service or product selling business from say, Yellow Pages, what's one of the first questions we commonly ask when we call the business? Often a question we ask is 'how much does it cost?' The reason I've noticed that people ask that question is that its the only intelligent question they know how to ask! That's because as customer who are quite lacking in knowledge on what we are buying. So instead of telling the sales person 'I don't know anything about your product or service', so we can totally rely on their recommendations and 'trust' them, we instead pretend that price is important by asking them that question. If the sales person is smart, they will realise the customer wants information, not a price, so they can make an informed decision about suitability of their own emotion needs and benefits. What's happening here is that we don't like anyone to think we're dumb. We fear asking a question about a product or service we don't normally buy, in case we ask something that makes us feel stupid! Instead we play the 'price game'. By now I would think you're starting to agree that emotion always plays a part of any sales scenario. There is evidence all around us in society that says money always travels hand in hand with emotion. Where we risk losing it, we have apprehension, even with $5 next time you go to the newsagency to read a magazine! |
