The Role of Negative Emotions in Sales

Many salespeople believe that all emotions are equal in sales. This is not the case. You need to be careful when using negative emotion in sales because your prospects can paint you with the same negativity. When this happens, it really hurts your sales and makes you seem untrustworthy to potential clients.

In a previous article, we talked about the shaping of beliefs and how powerful it can be to connect yourself to a client’s positive experience by asserting that there are no accidents. This causes them to relate their good fortune to you. 

All right, now, let’s talk about the flip side of this, and that is assigning blame. Better hang on here if you are religiously oriented because I’m going to shake the tree just a little bit here in a minute. Okay? 

We should be aware of this inclination and take steps to make sure that the finger of blame isn’t pointed at us in any way. It’s important to be prepared, since people tend to make an emotional decision, not one based on logical argument. 

It’s essential that we prevent ourselves from becoming a target of someone else’s accusation and emotional triggers and instead focus on finding ways to resolve the problem. This is why emotional marketing tends to remain uniformly positive. 

But occasionally, it can also be advantageous to briefly address any criticism, utilizing it as an opportunity to illustrate our own admirable qualities in comparison. 

Doing so allows us to direct attention away from any blame that may have been brought up by emotional trigger words and shift towards the positive elements of a situation. 

People Bond Because Of Common Enemies 

So the next thing is, assigning blame and let’s talk about that for a moment. In group theory, there’s a lot of discussion about enemies, common enemies, etc. Why? Well, because one of the greatest ways you can ever bond a group is to have an enemy. 

Now let’s talk about two of the biggest religions—they’re sort of opposing each other—but let’s just talk about this so you can see how it works, let’s talk about two of them, Muslims and Christians. 

So using good group theory . . . let’s say you started your own religion, actually, what would be something you could do? Well, you could figure out a common enemy, someone that you wanted to have as an enemy or some thing that you could have as an enemy. Let’s start with Christianity as an example. 

“The Devil Made Me Do It” 

What’s the common enemy of Christianity? Well, you probably know right off the top of your head, it’s the devil. How do we leverage this for huge benefit? 

Well, we start saying things like, the consequences of sin is death. We say things like, we as humans are born into a world of sin and the mere act of being born causes us to not be able to get into the life hereafter until and unless we accept Jesus as our savior. 

So let’s look at the enemy here. The enemy is, well, just being born, for Pete’s sake, because we’re born into sin, who’s responsible for that? The devil. Okay? This is a great tool. 

I heard someone say many years ago, “The devil is the best friend the Christian ever had because without him, there would be no need for a savior.” Think about the word ‘savior’. Savior implies someone needs saving. And if you’re born into sin, you in fact do need saving. 

In fact, I’m kind of being the devil’s advocate here, inadvertently, I suppose, because I’m literally standing back, removing my own beliefs here, just to point out to you what’s going on so you can see this. 

The Need To Be Careful And Responsible When Assigning Blame

Now does it mean, by the way, having a common enemy isn’t a good thing? No, I think common enemies are great things. What I can tell you is, one has to be careful and responsible. 

Is it responsible of a Christian to say that the devil’s a common enemy? Absolutely. Absolutely. Also note the advantage of pointing at a common enemy that you can’t see, you can’t hear, and in fact, even humanity’s basic drives and desires can be attributed to the influence of this being?

Again, I’m not debating the truth of it or the lack of truth of it, I’m just simply pointing it out. 

The Inherent Need To Assign Blame 

It is within our very nature to allocate responsibility for any situation that may arise; assigning blame has become an instinctive habit of ours. We can observe this tendency in almost every individual, as it appears to be a fundamental part of the human psyche. It seems that no matter what happens, we have an innate inclination to assign fault and point fingers. 

Let’s take the Muslims, for example. I recently saw a special talking about some of the things that are going on right now in Great Britain. 

Unfortunately, I don’t know as much as I’d like to know about that religion, it does seem quite fascinating in many ways and certainly I would say that the majority of people that practice that are far from being the terrorists that everybody thinks they are. 

But here we have a guy who’s an attorney and a Muslim and this gentleman was being showcased. He was quite radical and basically believed that anybody who did not follow the law of the Muslims was going to be overthrown or overrun and that one day, could face military action, a Muslim military that would actually go and force religious things to be made right. 

Well, this special went on and showed those that practiced the Muslim faith and asked them what they thought of this and they, without question, said, “Wait a minute now, what about our free will? You can’t just enforce this on everybody. That’s not right.” 

Contrasting ‘Things Happen For A Reason’ With ‘Blame’ 

So I’m contrasting ‘things happen for a reason’ with ‘blame.’ So at our core, we look to assign fault.

What’s the first thing you say? 

“Well, I was misbehaving because I was laughing and I shouldn’t have been because Billy made me laugh. He told a joke and he said it real quiet so nobody else could hear, but it’s his fault.” As if that’s going to save you from your inappropriate behavior. Who’s at fault? Who’s wrong? 

It’s Better To Look To The Solution Than Point Out The Blame 

Well, let me tell you something, as it relates to you personally and to me personally, I would rather look for the solution to issues than to point out the blame. And I recommend that you take a serious hard look at this. 

This blaming of everything and everyone causes lots of problems, BUT there is a golden side to this and here it is. 

Let’s say that someone says to you, “It’s a good thing that we’re here talking together today because my advisor, I think, hasn’t been doing right by me. I’m very concerned. My investments have just not done well lately and I don’t like that. I want to retire before long and they’re not doing well.” 

And you ask or state, “Well, you just have to wonder whose fault that is, don’t you?” And most probably, the person will say, “Well, I think it’s my advisor’s.” 

And you might, if you want to feed the fire a little, you might say, “Well, and I think really that’s just sort of the tip of the iceberg. I mean, I don’t know your advisor so I can’t really comment, but I would say that’s probably just the tip of the iceberg.” 

And they go, “Yeah, it’s probably their company too. Actually letting people get away with this is really bad. And here I am suffering and paying the price.” And you say, “Yes. That’s exactly right.” 

Do Not Linger In Negativity 

I wouldn’t dwell there because if you dwell in the land of negativity, it’s like a double edged knife. It’s going to come right back and cut you. It cuts going and coming. Be very careful.

You can touch on it, just enough to show yourself in good contrast to your competitor, you can evoke emotion of blame and then leave it behind as you present yourself through a more positive emotional connection. 

So another way you could do this to leverage emotion effectively is when they start talking about how bad things are, you could say, “You know, you just have to wonder why someone would let things get so bad. I’m sure glad you decided not to let it continue.” 

Yes, you absolutely have. You have also distanced yourself from that certain emotion. 

Two Sides Of The Same Coin

So ‘things happen for a reason’, ‘there are no accidents’ and assigning blame. Two sides of the same emotional persuasion coin and they’re incredibly powerful in terms of emotional reactions … and I mean, knock your socks off, blow you away powerful, and you can slip these little guys in anywhere in your conversation. 

Whatever different emotions your target audience evidences, you need to be able to leverage that emotional content to guide their decision making. 

Remember when selling, the use of emotions is a very powerful tool for you to leverage. However, keep in mind that negative emotions can create an adversarial relationship between you and potential clients. When that happens, you will make less sales and more enemies. Leverage positive emotions as much as possible to boost your sales the highest.

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