Misery Loves to Spend

The John F. Kennedy School for Government at Harvard University recently released a study that found that even momentary sadness causes people to increase spending.

As sales people and persuaders, we know that selling is based more on emotions than logical reasoning. That's why we appeal to the core values and deep criteria of our prospects and clients. The study "Misery is Not Miserly: Sad and Self-Focused Individuals Spend More" which will be published in Psychological Science, June of 2008, states that when people are sad and self focused they spend more money than those in neutral emotional states.

As persuaders, we can use anchoring and peak emotional states in our sales. We utilize self focus, introspection, and occasionally sadness, when working with our prospects and clients.

The researchers incited a heightened self focus with the participants and combined that with the participant being shown either a sad video clip or a neutral video clip advertising the product in question. The people who watched the sad clip offered 300% more than the neutral participants.

I suspect that if the folks doing the study also had a very happy, positive video clip of the product, that too would have incited increased spending. And had the researchers been aware of the towards and away continuum, they would have been able to further understand the benefits of peak emotional states in sales.

The towards and away continuum is powerful in determining how your prospect responds in specific contexts. Not everyone views the world through rose colored glasses. There are people who will respond positively to a negative associations.

In the instance of financial advisers, when you determine if your prospect is towards or away, you can fashion the language you use to their orientation. Eliciting a prospect's criteria will give you their trigger. Say that criteria is 'security'. By asking the question, 'What will having financial security do for you?' you will find your prospect's orientation.

If they say, 'Well, I'm tired of worrying about my finances. . .' That's an away from. If they say, 'Well, I just want to stay in control of my finances. . .' That's more of a toward orientation.

With the away from person, you don't want to be optimistic, just as with the toward person, you don't want to be pessimistic. Tailoring your language in such a way that you bring more "pain" to the away person and more "ease" to the toward is really the key to selling.

The Harvard study didn't get it wrong, but they really only got part of the story.

About the Author

Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of affluent clients using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques.

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