How to address the two psychological needs of your customers

Modern sales suggests that there are two psychological needs of buyers: they make purchase decisions emotionally and then justify those decisions with logic. However, the truth is a little more complicated, writes sales expert and trainer Darcy J Smyth.

One of the most commonly referred to buying behaviours in modern sales is the idea that people will typically make purchasing decisions emotionally, and then justify those decisions with logic. But there’s more to it than that.

Without enough logic at the time of the purchase, it’s likely your customer will buy in the moment but then experience buyer’s remorse and possibly return their purchase.

On the other hand, without enough emotion present it’s unlikely they’ll have enough drive in the engine to actually make the sale in the first place.

That’s been a consumer psychology truth for decades now, but it doesn’t end there.

Sufficient emotional and logical processes in buyers is more critical than ever – especially in a world where they can rapidly make a decision to go with any other sales professional at the click of a button or the scroll of a thumb. So it’s not going to be enough to simply know that customers ‘ buy emotionally and justify logically’.

You need to be able to detect when a buyer is processing information both emotionally and logically, and satisfy the part of their brain that’s being ignored at that moment in time.

How do we know when a customer is going emotional?

When we imagine someone being emotional we typically think of the outward expression of emotion. Laughter, crying, anguish, jealousy… the list goes on.

Although this is one way to show emotion, quite often emotion is much more subtle than that. Emotionality most often occurs when our buyer begins talking about themselves – their experiences, their perspectives, their internal and self-generated ideas.

They’ll use words like ‘I’, ‘we’ and ‘myself’ in order to frame the conversation. They’re describing how our product or service will most impact them. You can therefore tick the ’emotional box’ by asking questions that impact them personally.

How do we know when they’re going logical?

Speaking logically is distinctly different from speaking emotionally and is therefore quite simple to detect. We know our buyer is accessing the logical part of their mind when they describe anything external to them. They may note ‘how the numbers are adding up’, ‘what the team is working on at the moment’ or ‘where they want the situation to be in three months time.’

Anything they could reach out and grab with their hand is included here. Data, analytics, time-based conversations and numbers are all indicative of a highly logical thinker’s experience of the world. By asking them questions that refer to external indicators of a successful decision with us we will fulfil their logical requirements.

So how do we bring it all together?

Successfully fulfilling the logical and emotional needs of buyers involves careful listening and artful questions. You want to make sure they experience as much relevant information as possible to make a great buying decision.

The conversation should include a combination that satisfies both sides of your buyer’s brain. A mix of talking about themselves and talking about what’s going on around them. That means discussing both how they’re feeling and what the numbers are saying. You want to get them talking from both a personal perspective and the perspective of others.

It’s only then that the logical and emotional swing will have full effect in your sales game. Your buyers will walk away feeling taken care of and satisfied by their purchase on every front.

This article was originally published in 2016 and has been updated for 2022.

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