People Buy on Anger, Excitement, Nostalgia…Emotion

I visited Disney World and it's an emotion filled experience.  Disney knows the importance of customer emotions in the buying process.  You see it everywhere.

Example 1:  A Visit to the Toy Story Mania Ride

We rode the Disney Hollywood Studio Toy Story Mania ride.  It's a souped up shooting gallery that's really well done.  Since you'll be waiting over an hour in line, Disney pipes you through Andy's bedroom.  He's the young kid who owns Woody and Buzz Lightyear and it's a walk (or wait) down memory lane.

It transported me to my childhood with views of games and toys like:

• Chutes and Ladders,
• Crayola Crayons,
• Scrabble,
• Twister,
• Game of Life
• Operation,
• Viewmaster,
• and so many more.

It also transported me back to when I was raising my kid.  My daughter, who on the trip with us, asked me, "Remember when we use to play Candyland together."

As good as the ride was, the thing I most remember was how Disney transported me to my own childhood and child raising years.  Kudos to them.

Example 2: Star Wars Everywhere

Now that Disney owns everything Star Wars, you see it everywhere in the park.  Hollywood Studio holds a Storm Trooper march every few hours leading you to a stage show that's pretty much a trailer for every Star Wars movie you've ever seen.  In 2019, they'll open a huge new section of that park dedicated completely to Star Wars.

My cousin who was there with us brought up our taking him to see Return of the Jedi over 20 years ago.  We spent a while chatting about our trip when he was little to see the film.  It brought up emotions that day and around our relationship.

The list goes on and one.

My point here is when we sell, we have to tap into the emotions.  People buy on emotion and justify it with logic.  It's not the other way around.  If I have an online course I'm selling, I must sell to my buyer's emotions.

What is it they fear?  What is there major challenge?  What's really frustrating them?

I MUST tap into their dreams.  What does a dream day look like to them?  How would life be easier for them if they overcome those fears, challenges and frustrations?

This sounds easy, but it's terribly difficult.  What makes it most difficult is that the longer we have been consulting or training or coaching in our space, the more difficult it becomes to see what we do from our customer's perspective.  We're contaminated is what I like to say.

So we need take steps to reveal that invisible customer perspective.  I recommend asking our customers, surveying them, holding discussions with them.  We need to shed light on how a customer sees what we sell and build intimacy with what's holding them back from achieving their dream.

That's the only way we can present what we offer in a way that catches there attention and starts them down a learning path that leads to what we sell.

Disney does this better than anyone I know.  They do it over and over again in their parks, with their merchandising, in their movies and how those all work together to tug and our hearts.  They connect with our emotions and nostalgic memories to get us engaged and buying what it is they sell.

Hope this helps!