People don\’t Buy Emotionally

There is a saying in sales that goes: “People buy emotionally, and justify with logic.” At best this phrase is a half truth. The reason people say this, is because of a misunderstanding of what an emotion is.  In other words, they confuse emotions with feelings.

There are 10 emotions. What makes them unique is you can clearly see them on the face. They are: 

• Happiness
• Anger
• Fear
• Sadness
• Contempt
• Disgust
• Surprise
• Embarrassment
• Guilt
• Shame

Feelings are different from emotions, in that they involve a cognitive evaluation of your current state. In other words, feelings always involve actually thinking about and processing information – and then making a conclusion.

Here are some common feelings:

1. I feel loved
2. I feel lonely
3. I feel hungry
4. I feel misunderstood
5. I feel tired
6. I don’t feel respected

This was only a short list. In actuality, there are an infinite number of different feelings you and your prospects have. You can’t predict feelings of people, because you don’t know how they are evaluating their current situation.

Emotions, on the other hand, are autonomic reactions that don’t require any conscious thought. They happen automatically, and they can be predicted in advance. In fact, they can be triggered. It is like the reaction you’d get when you step on a cat’s tail. The act of stepping on the tail triggers the cat’s reaction, and it will immediately shriek and run off. It is purely automatic. That is what an emotion is like.

In regard to our discussion, the emotion of disgust happens when you accidentally step in a pile of fresh dog excrement that is on the sidewalk. It is immediate as you notice the brown smelly goo sticking on the sole of your brand new pair of shoes.

You can predict to a certain extent that a person will experience the emotion of disgust in this situation. That makes emotions pretty unique compared to feelings. You can predict, and actually trigger them.

Feelings come later. In this example, you may have a “feeling” a bit later as you think about the shoes. Maybe you’ll feel anger for the person that didn’t clean up after their dog. Here you’re actually feeling the emotion of anger. 

Or maybe you’ll have a feeling that it is time to buy another pair of shoes.

Remember, emotions are NOT why people buy. It is “Feelings.” When you feel hungry, there is high likelihood that you’ll go out and buy some food. When you’re feeling lonely, you may buy a puppy. 

We can try to illicit a feeling in another person. For example, you may put a plate of food in front of a person and try to get them to feel hungry. But there is no guarantee that you’ll be successful, for the reason that a feeling requires the person to have a cognitive evaluation of the situation, and make a conclusion for themselves. It will always be hard to generate feelings in others, but that doesn’t mean marketers won’t try. 

However, since emotions can be predicted, it means we can use them in selling situations. Using emotions in selling will be a topic of a different “customer secret blog.” But if you can’t wait for that future blog, I would suggest you look into the book I wrote called: “Selling by Personality Type.” It will explain step-by-step, how emotions are used in persuasion.