In the quest to close the sale we can often forget to be human. If you have been to one of our sales training workshops you already know that we put a strong emphasis on the quality human interactions that help us to be liked and respected.

Sometimes sales success is about connecting with someone on a human level and being interested enough to find out what your potential prospect wants, needs and desires. Most people are benefit seekers – the “good” – first and foremost. This also implies that for every benefit sought there is an opposite “bad”.

What is a “good” or a “bad” depends upon two things:

1. Our perception of what is “good” and “bad” and
2. Whether we have included this feeling

Using these two basic factors we can begin to draw up a basic understanding of human benefit seeking behaviours.

Protection: If people have a “good” they want to keep it.

Relief:  If people have a “bad” they want to get rid of it.

Acquisition: If people don’t have not a “good” they want to get it

Prevention: If people don’t have a “bad” they want to avoid it

The thing is, we as humans tend to have all four going on at the same time. It is up to the skilled seller to try and appeal to the parts relevant to the prospect.

Here’s a tip: pair two elements together for added punch i.e – acquisition and relief, or, protection and prevention. Advertisers and marketers manage it quite well. Think of all of the adverts for products like Night Nurse, Lemsip and Anvil. They generally stress the pain of the current ‘illness’ and then show a process of acquisition of their product which leads to the relief of the pain.

So how do we appeal to the four categories?

Protection:

Most products or services that appeal to protection are sold as a means to protect our possessions. One of the first things we did when we set up Natural Training in 2004 was to invest in online data storage. We needed our precious sales training materials and upcoming product ideas, such as our Negotiation Training ,so we chose a product called Carbonite that spoke to us both in terms of strength (protective name and imagery) and ease (relief). Was it worth it?

You bet. Three weeks after finalising the system our server crashed with the loss of all data.

That also raises another interesting question which I will answer in a later blog post about the perceived value of ‘intangible purchases’

Your tasks:

a. Watch how others do it: When you are watching the telly hone your skills to work out which quadrant the ads are in and look out for protection ads using words like:  keep, save, protect, maintain, take care of, safeguard, own, retain, hold, support, sustain, uphold, endure and last longer.

b. If relevant to your product or service, give it a try! You don’t have to over-egg the pudding, just try adding some extra thoughts and feelings that relate to the need all of us have to protect ourselves, our things and those around us!

In our training workshops we help you to focus your messages using the power of 3.  Give me a call if you would like to talk further about any of this article or your own experiences!