Persuasion Based On Your Prospect's Needs

"Nothing has more strength than dire necessity." ~ Euripides

We all have needs. Even the affluent have needs, though some would say they're more capable of having them fulfilled. One of the basic strategies of sales and marketing is fulfilling our prospect's and client's needs.

Think about what is consciously on your mind. You're reading this article, so it's possible these words are all that you're thinking about. But if I was writing an article about bananas, then you'd start picturing a banana, or thinking about bananas. If your doctor told you you had to start eating bananas or potassium, you'd probably think about them even more.

There's no possible reason for us to be thinking about bananas all day and dreaming about them all night. But when necessity, such as your doctor's advice, intervenes, then bananas become more of a common thought for us.

Consciousness is regulated by the part of the brain called the reticular activating system. This is considered to be central to motivation and arousal. It's involved in the central nervous system's activities and it helps us to pay attention to the most important things and store those we can reasonably disregard for a time.

Our conscious minds can hold seven (plus or minus two) bits of information at a time. the rest is stored in our other-than-conscious minds for retrieval when needed.

Think about the last time you took a long road trip. Maybe you had on the radio, you were singing along to an old song (whose lyrics you still remember from decades ago, but hadn't thought about consciously in years, maybe), and you're maybe thinking about where you're going, who you're going to see when you get there. You probably aren't thinking of having to go to the bathroom. You won't think about that until you need to. And maybe you aren't thinking about water or gas or food, unless you need them.

It becomes a different story when you all of the sudden need one of them. Gas becomes so very important if you're on Empty. Water becomes important if you're dehydrated and your A/C isn't working. When food becomes a need, all of the sudden you start seeing fast food signs telling you what's available to eat, when before you may not have been paying more than a slight passing attention to them.

What happened to those thoughts before? Well, they really weren't in our consciousness. Once these thoughts begin to hold relevancy we can seize control of them and leverage them to our advantage, then put them away when they're no longer applicable to us.

By eliciting the criteria of our prospects, we bring their needs to the forefront. As we speak to their values, in relation to our products or services, we are fine tuning the reticular activating system to everyone's advantage--ours and theirs.

Criteria elicitation is our compass in satisfying our prospect's and client's needs. Once we have that, the persuasion naturally follows.

Article Source: http://www.articlegoldmine.com

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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