How to Appeal to Buyers? Pride by lisafugere

[Doha]

How to Appeal to Buyers? Pride
by lisafugere

pridePride has two distinct meanings: one that is purely negative and another that is much more positive. The negative connotation is often used as a way to describe hubris, or an inflated self worth. On the positive side, it is often a way to express dignity, honor, and respect.

Pride, in the positive sense, comes with a feeling of exhilaration or happiness. If you can inspire pride in your customers' buying decisions, their confidence in you will soar. Any purchase that makes a prospect feel good about himself will make him more likely to be a repeat customer.

How does the appeal to pride work?
You can use an appeal to pride in the negative sense as well as in the positive sense to win sales. When used together, these appeals create a strong emotional pull for buyers. Begin with a negative appeal: insult your buyer's ego. In a report from Harvard Business Review, sales reps that challenge their prospects consistently outperform reps that employ any other tactic, including relationship building. Challenger reps assert controversial views that jolt a buyer into seeing the validity of their points. They tell their buyers they are wrong, then teach them the right way. The second part of the appeal to pride begins with the teaching portion of the sale. After you've told a prospect their beliefs are not current or beneficial, an explanation of better solutions goes beyond just selling products. You stand out because you offer a new philosophy, rather than just a product that will help them.

A masterful example of the appeal to pride
Anyone who's watched the AMC show, Mad Men, will tell you that Don Draper is a great salesman. In a famous scene from the show, Draper appeals to his client's pride to sell a new campaign for a lipstick brand, Belle Jolie.Don starts out his sale with a challenge for the customer. He asserts that the client's answer is wrong ? to his face. He tells him that he's outdated, and that his solution isn't working. It's an insult, and the client feels threatened. Draper has chipped his pride. And then Don explains exactly why his idea is better. He explains how his solution will make Belle Jolie lipstick stand out and empower women with its individualism. He doesn't sell a campaign, he sells a philosophy.


Using the appeal to pride as a sales tool
We can borrow Draper's approach in our own sales. Insulting your customers is a bold move, and can definitely backfire. But challenging them with concepts that you know contradict their practices can motivate them to look into your solution. Trigger events create reasons to buy, and you can trigger a new need or opportunity with the right challenge for your prospect. Chances are, you can find out their philosophy online through pre-call research. Evaluate their industry, and find out what challenges their colleagues face. Let them know that their status quo is rapidly growing outdated. And then present your solution. Don Draper tells his client that he's losing sales because his approach is no longer fresh ? a perfect segue into a presentation of what he believes is fresh. Prospects want to feel at the top of their industry. They want to believe they are better than their competition. You can make them feel that way by suggesting that the way they're doing things is the same way everyone else is doing things, and they can rise above if they do something different.

Appealing to a prospect's pride can, however, be taken the wrong way. Insulting a prospect without backing it up with the belief that they can do better may end in slammed phones. Stroking your prospect's ego to make a sale can have the same effect. Regardless of how you approach your prospect, make sure you've done your research. Learning about prospects through sales intelligence can help you go into every sales call with the confidence and assertiveness that an appeal to pride requires.