What Is An Emotional Selling Proposition & Is It Better Than A Unique Selling Proposition?

Emotional Selling Proposition – have you got one?

We all know that sales are based mostly on emotion and the decision is backed up with logic.

Sales logic vs emotion – that’s the law of the salesperson. So, do we often come up with emotional selling points in our proposals? Do we develop our emotional selling propositions as well as our unique selling propositions?

You’ve heard of a USP right? i.e Unique Selling Proposition – well, these are the benefits that your prospects and clients can look forward to receiving when they purchase your wares.

They could be called “THE LOGICAL BENEFITS” of doing business with you.

Your Sales Manager and Sales Director will most likely ram USP’s down your throat so you can discuss them with your prospects.

But based upon what we said earlier, your prospects will make their buying decisions based upon emotion and will back that decision up with logic and not just logic alone via your USPs. Are USP’s really USP’s any longer? Everyone seems to have the same USP’s!

Therefore, you need to work out what your ESP is. So your emotional selling points can often take centre-stage for your prospects. Now we’ve mentioned emotional selling propositions several times, so let’s ask the question:

What is an Emotional Selling Proposition (ESP)?

Of course, your USP will provide logic and reasoning as to why someone should select you, but their primary reason will be an emotional one.

Here’s an emotional selling proposition definition: Your ESP’s are your products/service/companies’ emotional levers that help the prospect to buy. They are the “beneath the service” triggers to creates emotion.

So, think about the feelings and the emotions that you want to stir up with your prospects and clients and use this in your sales. Can your product/service make the prospect:

* Feel important
* Feel valued
* Feel part of a unique group or select band of people
* Feel whole
* Feel remembered
* Feel attractive
* Feel trendy
* Feel hip
* Feel safe
* Feel accepted

A lot of your Sales Training may include training on your product and service and how to sell. But what do you cover to unlock the emotional triggers of your buyer?

Ask different types of questions

One way you can generate emotional feelings in your buyer is to ask different types of sales questions. You could divide them into positive and negative ones. A positive question would be like ‘How do you see your sales improving in the next three years?’ or ‘What benefits do your customers achieve from your services?’

Negative questions can also drive your emotional selling proposition, but in a different direction. Something like ‘What’s your biggest concern in your marketplace right now?’ or ‘How long has your business had these problems?’ point the emotional direction in a negative direction.

You emotional selling proposition drives the customer into thinking about how they feel about the situation they are in. Think of them as your emotional selling points and highlight them whenever you are asking your prospect to decide to move forward.

If you can create a solid logical and emotional case for your product and service then asking for the sale will become a lot easier. You’ll find that you can use one of these closing sales transition statements to effortless move the sale forward to the next stage of the sales funnel.

So, next time you are revisiting your USP’s make sure you take just as long if not longer on your emotional selling proposition too.

Improve your sales skills…

We have several different options available that will help you to improve your sales performance. This includes our 2-day Face to Face Selling Skills Training course as well as our Retail Sales Training.

We’ve also got several online sales training solutions which include online courses as well as LIVE sales webinars. Remember to look at our popular portfolio of Sales Training Courses, all in one place.

Happy ESP!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training