InsuranceNewsNet Magazine February 2012 : 14
FEATuRE | THE sCIEnCE OF sALEs MORIN: Seductive with speed and sim-plicity. We are wired to not engage the cortex before the reptilian brain. We want to understand the same way that kids understand. We want to understand with the minimum amount of time and complexity. The problem, with most peo-ple who sell insurance or financial ser-vices, is that they are putting huge cog-nitive loads on our brain and they’re not even ashamed of it. What’s hard in sales is creating sim-plicity. And very few people are willing to work hard to create a simple message. We talk about the importance of timing your event so that you have a very strong beginning and end. FELDMAN: How important are the visual and emotional components of a sales presentation? MORIN: Those two elements are critical to a successful sales experience. With the power of delivering visually—it’s your body language, your ability to approach people without fear, to smile, to control your voice so that you can produce what we call “chi.” It’s your energy through the entire way you’re articulating the message that goes beyond the message. Some studies have shown that when you meet someone, 55 percent of the effectiveness of influence is through body language—your body movement and ability to make eye contact. Then, 38 per-cent is your voice and 7 percent is what you say. The best sales people are mas-ters of the way they move, the way they approach you and the way they advance with you—actually mirroring your body language. It’s the way they talk to you that exudes confidence, sincerity and honesty. Then there is the emotional piece. We are creatures that are fundamentally and biologically wired to activate chemicals in order to move physically and intellectu-ally. When you look at the history of how our brains evolved, consider that we were initially way more preoccupied by physi-cal movement than we were by ideas or the generation of thoughts. Yet the chem-icals involved in both are the same. I heard someone say that the only rea-son we have a brain is because we need to move physically. And that’s quite a 14 InsuranceNewsNet Magazine February 2012 “If you can’t be happy and excited, you’re in the wrong job because selling is creating happiness. ” statement. It resonated with me because, in many ways, I’m encouraging people in sales to allow prospects to move physi-cally toward them. If they do, that means they’ve created essentially the chemical messages that are activating the deci-sion-making process as well. And we all know that when we like people, we just want to be closer to them. Well, the same is true in sales. And understanding this idea that you need to trigger movement toward you, it’s very different than con-ventional thinking. FELDMAN: How is that contrary to con-ventional thinking? MORIN: In many ways we have lost this very basic understanding that we are moving beings. Even the word “move” is probably my favorite word in the English language. It has a double entendre—we can move physically; we can move emo-tionally. The chemicals that make us move physically are essentially the same that make us move emotionally. There-fore, when you create an emotion by this excitement—whether it’s anticipation, love, laughter, you name it—those states have a chemical expression that makes us move physically and cognitively. FELDMAN: You mentioned laughter, is this why some people like to tell a joke to break the ice and engage people? MORIN: Yes, laughter will make people move. It’s almost impossible to laugh and not move. There have been many, many studies looking at what’s called “approach behaviors.” We don’t realize that all of our rituals, whether it’s handshaking or hug-ging, are actually a cognitive engagement. FELDMAN: If I’m a sales person and I have somebody sitting in front of me, what should I be doing to get movement toward me? MORIN: If you are invited to sit down, you should find an opportunity to actually occupy space and demonstrate by your own movement that you have so much passion, enthusiasm and energy that you can’t stand still. Now, you don’t want to display agitation, nervousness or look like you can’t stay comfortable. But, if you are able to command the occupation of the space, you’re sending a very powerful message in terms of your energy, your chi, your enthusiasm and fearlessness. That energy is very attractive to peo-ple who want to trust you and therefore you create a pull. It’s a magnet for peo-ple to say, “Wow, I want to know more.” But sometimes you’re restricted in your ability to do that. When you can’t stand out because you don’t have the space, we recommend moving very slightly toward people at critical moments— when you’re leaning toward them, you’re essentially indicating that you are fearless, passionate and that your ability to approach others is because you want to help and serve them. This only works if you are acting out of integrity and with the highest moral and ethical standards. The good news is, most of the time, when we see people not act-ing upon good standards, we can detect it. We detect it in their eye movements. We detect it in the way they behave and how incongruent some of those behav-iors can be. FELDMAN: Can you explain the connec-tion between emotion and a chemical reaction? MORIN: The truly fascinating thing about emotion, figured out over the past 10 years, is that we need emotional cocktails. We need those chemicals to be active so that our neurons are firing in a particu-lar direction. And when they do, they end up wiring together. What’s been discov-ered is that we use emotional moments as memory markers. So if you’re pitching to me, not only am I going to have trou-ble with too much information, but on
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