“The emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.” - James Joyce

            Emotions nearly always play a significant role in achieving persuasion. In sales it is often said that people buy emotionally and justify rationally.

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            One of the biggest mistakes that I see people making that causes resistance to persuasion or outright failure of the attempt is the misunderstanding of emotions and emotional content.

            One of my most vivid memories of an in home sales presentation was for Vulcan fire alarms. I’m not even sure if they are still in existence. But I’ll never forget the salesman who came to sell the alarm.

            The salesman arrived and began to explain the value of having fire alarms.  When we decided not to buy, he attempted to engage our emotions. He said to my mom “Imagine how you’ll feel looking at the burned dead bodies of your sons knowing that for just a few dollars a month you could have saved their lives.”

            Rather than being emotionally overcome my mom just laughed and said “I can promise you if my sons die in a house fire I’m in that I won’t be alive to see their dead bodies; I’ll have perished trying to get them out.” In one sentence my mom defeated his “closes ‘em every time” technique for harnessing emotion.

            Emotions by their very definition are feelings that spring outward in response to some stimulus. To be subliminally persuasive you must understand which emotions you are appealing to and attempting to get a reaction from.

            The pressure of having to pay for fire detectors with money we didn’t have evoked a much stronger emotional reaction in my mom than an idea that seemed highly unlikely to her, that someone in the house wouldn’t wake up and get everyone out in the event of a fire. The salesman also activated a second emotion in my mom and it was a feeling of being disrespected by assuming that she’d fall for such an obvious ploy.

            The key emotions that most persuaders should concern themselves with are:

Desire – A sense of intense want or a feeling of identifying what is missing and wanting that.

Lust – An intense desire or craving for something (including sex).Often it is not physically tangible like power.

Loss – The anticipation of not having something that they could or already have.

Shame – A feeling of doing something dishonorable. In the case of sales, marketing and persuasion, the emotion of shame is often associated with not taking action when you know you should. For example, forgoing health care insurance to buy a new car.

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