Are you appealing to your prospects’ emotions?
As a coach or consultant, emotional appeals are the hook that gets someone to care about what you’re selling.
Think about it this way:
By starting with your prospect’s feelings, you are meeting them where they are, not where you want them to be.
Appealing to emotions, as any politician knows is more powerful than immediately inundating someone with facts.
Facts come later. After you’ve made the emotional connection
As a coach or consultant, you’re selling an intangible.
No one will care about your services —or how terrific you are — unless they know that you understand their situation. That you’re in sync, talking your prospects’ language.
Too many coaches or consultants instead begin with what they do, not with what you’re experiencing.
Let me show you what I mean.
Here is how a coach on LinkedIn begins her profile:I am a heart-driven coach and have been a student of personal development for over 30 years.
What I know for sure, is that each person has inherent worth and dignity. We travel different paths with the universal destination of becoming our best selves.
Our lives are filled with responsibilities, some more fulfilling than others. When we are connected to our CORE VALUES we can live a life of intention and greater satisfaction.
I help clients dig deep to answer the question “What Do I Really Want?” We are able to make the necessary changes and choices in living our most authentic life.
She buried, as they say in journalism, the lede.
Talk about your customers’ challenges.
Rather than begin with her clients’ struggle, she began with herself.
Why not instead begin by saying?
Is this you? You’re out of sorts, frustrated at work and at home and know you need to change. But struggle to answer the question, “What Do I Really Want?”Then she can explain how she can help.
I would also encourage her to flesh out the person she’s talking to? Does she work with both men and women? Are they professionals? Mothers? A certain age?
Let your audience see themselves in your description.
One of my clients, for example, a small business growth consultant, needed to reframe her offer by painting a picture of her clients. Here is how she described the small business owners she worked with:
- Energized by passion
- Focused on creative
- Determined to grow
- Interested in learning
- Overwhelmed by numbers
- Stretched too thin
Too many coaches and consultants regale you with their services first. They promise 20 calls a week or making your world famous or some other meaningless offer.
Instead be there for your prospect. Get inside their head and explain how they’re feeling.
How do you do that?
Ask Questions.
I explain to my small business audience of coaches and consultants that I know that many small business owners are great at what they do, but their talents don’t lie in marketing.
Before selling my services, I find out what they’ve tried. Many have been “stutterer marketers,” trying a little bit of this and that but unable to complete the work. They’re stuck, not sure what to do.
Only after I know what they’ve tried and what they’re challenged by, do I explain what I do.
Remember you’r not selling in a vacuum but to a particular audience. Get them to recognize themselves in what you’re selling.
How do you appeal to your clients’ emotions?
This post appeared in a slightly different format on LinkedIn.
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