The 7 Steps to Leading Your Prospect to Their Buying State

All human beings buy something because of the meaning around it, and that meaning always evokes emotion, whether that emotion is joy, relief, or excitement. No matter what you are selling to someone, no matter who they are, there is always an emotion around that purchase.

I want you to think about a time in your life when you made a big purchase. Maybe it was a car, a home, a new phone, or even adopting a pet. When you think about that purchase, whatever it may be, I want you to answer this question: What meaning did it have for you? Maybe if it was a new car, it meant that you didn’t have to walk everywhere anymore or spend time and money on a bus or a train, and that purchase meant freedom. Now, thinking about what that purchase meant for you, and answer this question: What emotion did that evoke? Going back to our car example, if the new car meant freedom, it may make you feel excited about the new adventures that lie ahead of you.

Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman says in his book, How Customers Think, that 95% of our purchase decision-making takes place in the subconscious mind. So, as someone in sales, how do you lead your prospects to their buying emotional state? What emotions will your customers experience after purchasing from you?

We just rolled out a brand-new course all about this concept, called Leading the Prospect to Their Buying State. This course is about adding an advanced emotional layer over your existing selling process. It’s about adding an emotional filter so you can take your customer from their current emotional state to their buying state, using these 7 steps:

Step 1: Label the Emotion

Labeling is getting a person to verbalize their emotional state. When you realize the power of the phrase, “Tell me how you’re feeling about BLANK”, and master the process for labeling emotions, you can establish stronger emotional rapport with your prospect right away.

Step 2: Leading the Witness to the Worst Possible Outcome.

You want to know how to move your prospect through the emotional cycle so they can lock into the worst possible emotion and become aware of the worst possible outcome. You might be thinking, “Wait a minute, I want them to feel WORSE than when we first started talking?” The answer is yes, and here’s why: So that you can be their hero. So that you can be their healer. So you can be their solution. You need to lead the witness to the worst possible outcome, so that your prospect understands what will happen if they don’t move forward with you today. To ask them to buy from you, they need to realize that you are their vessel towards life improvement.

Step 3: Use Anchoring to Separate Yourself from the Competition.

You’re going to separate yourself from the competition by apologizing to your prospect on behalf of all the other salespeople they’ve talked to in the past. When you can use anchoring to sever the connection between you and all the past salespeople in their life that have wronged them, you can ease their pain and internal conflict. From there, you can anchor them with your language and hand motions, creating more trust, and building even stronger emotional rapport.

Step 4: Find the Desired Emotional State.

This is where you move your prospect away from the worst possible outcome and lock them into a desired emotional state. You’ve already established how they feel, how it will only get worse if they let it continue, and how you’re different from every other salesperson they’ve seen so far. So now, you’re going to move them away from the negative emotion they fear, and towards their desired state. You’re flipping step 1 around, so they aren’t only running FROM something negative, but TOWARDS something amazing.

Step 5: Set the Agenda with the Desired Emotional State.

This is the same setting the agenda step that you’re probably familiar with already, but focused on the emotional state that your prospect wants to be in. You know that they are moving away from a negative feeling, and towards a positive emotion, and now, you’re laying out the steps to get there. You’re saying, “Okay, so I know by the end of today, instead of feeling BLANK, you want to feel BLANK. Here’s how we’re going to do that.”

Step 6: Determine If They’ve Reached Their Buying State.

This step is for making sure you’ve accomplished what you said you were going to do. In step 5 you told them you’re going to accomplish A, B, and C so that they can feel that positive emotion they said they wanted to be in. Now, you’re using checkpoints to check their emotional temperature. If you nailed it, and you did what you said you were going to do, you’re done. If you didn’t nail it, then you move on to step 7.

Step 7: Celebrate Their Progress and Stop the Emotional Cycle.

It is vital that you close the emotional cycle. If you end the conversation with your prospect without reaching their desired emotional state, then you’re sending them on their way again with a false positive emotion. As a sales warrior, you don’t leave your prospect with just feeling good. Instead, you make sure that you’ve taken them as far as you possibly can before the conversation is over. This is where you’re asking, “Is there anything else you wish I said that I haven’t already?” These magic words are going to leave your prospect feeling 100% taken care of, with no loose ends or questions about why they should choose you today over all the alternatives.

Master communicators are intentional about questions that they use. You as the sales warrior are the primary source of confidence, motivation, hope, and certainty in the prospect’s decision to buy, or not to buy. You are their champion and learning how to lead your prospect to their emotional state is going to help you be the source of confidence, motivation, hope, and certainty for your prospect.

No matter what you are selling to someone, no matter who they are, there is always an emotion around that purchase. How many more sales would you make when you start leading your prospect to their buying emotional state? If you want to master this concept, go to https://www.FPG.com to learn how to take this 7-week course, and see the other courses that can help you become the Ultimate Sales Warrior.