Cartoon + Neuroscience = Sales Reality

Like many parents of young kids, I live under the oppressive thumb of kid-movie overload. I often leer at our Disney movie collection with a plot to “Let it Go”… perhaps deep “Under the Sea.” However, the previews for the new animated movie Inside Out have both my 3-year old daughter and me equally excited.

She’s excited because of the brightly colored characters heaved forth during nearly every commercial break by the deft Hollywood marketing machine.

I’m excited because the film covers a subject that directly relates to the most fascinating elements of my professional life here at ASLAN and our efforts to make sales easy.

Inside Out portrays the emotions of Joy, Anger, Sadness, Fear, and Disgust as colorful characters interacting inside the brain of an 11-year old girl named Riley. The previews show the characters collectively and individually changing how Riley behaves, and as I learned from this article, the film is based on real neuroscience.

I don’t know about you, but the real-world sales application of this film’s premise hits me like an ACME anvil. Specifically because, as we all know or suspect as sales professionals, emotions drive behavior. And they can change with or without warning.

At ASLAN, we’ve found that the emotional receptivity of a decision-maker is more important than what you say. Or to lean on one of our key principles: You cannot persuade an emotionally closed person. You must confirm either the customer is emotionally open or move the customer from closed to open before attempting to persuade.

Is this true? Well, let’s see. Have you ever tried to sell to, or even get a conversation started with someone where you feel like you are constantly hitting a brick wall? We’ve all been there.

You try to ask a question and get a vague response. You give them your surefire marketing-branded pitch and hear crickets (perhaps one of whom is donning a top hat and monocle). You present a proposal that makes perfect business sense and you don’t realize they were closed until you can’t get them back on the phone, and you never will.

If this sounds familiar, you could be facing customers who are emotionally closed. Perhaps it might be helpful to imagine that your customers have their own little colorful characters in their heads guiding their decision-making behaviors.

Maybe Mistrust, Anger, and Fear are working together to make customers closed. We might need to coax Interest, Excitement, and Comfort out in front to get them open and receptive.

It’s up to you to figure out which set of emotions is driving and focus initially on getting the open emotions to take the wheel before you start selling. However, how do we do that? At ASLAN, we’ve found that there are two keys:
1. Communicate to customers that you are focused only on their best interests
2. Communicate that you respect your customers’ right to choose

This could be as simple as stating the customer-relevant value of your uninvited call along with your request for permission for a short conversation.

Or prefacing a potentially sensitive question (maybe about budget) with a reason why the question is in the customer’s best interest and communicating that the customer is free to choose to answer or not.

You could present a few viable solutions to the customer that are linked to their stated preferences. Then get their feedback on which would be a better fit before providing your final recommendation and proposal.

Whether you are trying to earn a short conversation, an on-site meeting, or the signature on the dotted line, don’t forget … before decision-makers decide to act, they must first be emotionally open.

I can’t be sure that there are colorful characters in their heads guiding them, but I am sure that getting an emotional green light at each step of the sales process is our best chance of spending more time as Happy rather than Grumpy.

John Cerqueira
ASLAN Training & Development