If you’re neglecting the emotional side of decision making, you could be losing out on sales. While people often say they’re making decisions based on logic, they’re often really using facts to justify gut decisions. Most buying decisions come down to emotion, and this is true whether you’re talking about art, clothes, real estate or even insurance. That’s why it’s so important to make an emotional connection in disability insurance sales.
Emotions Power Decision Making Processes
According to Inc., a Harvard Business School professor asserts that 95% of all purchase decisions occur in the subconscious mind. Although people may say that they compare brands and price points rationally, research shows that it’s actually emotion that drives most purchasing behavior.
The reason for this is simple – emotions drive ALL decision making, not just purchasing decisions. In fact, Inc. says studies have even found that damage to the parts of the brain responsible for emotion also impact decision making.
Emotions help color the way we see the world, and science backs this up. For example, according to Psychology Today, research from author and theoretical physicist Leonard Mlodinow shows how emotions play a critical role in the way people process information. Although people can draw logical conclusions using rational thought, emotion helps us judge and place value on facts.
No matter how analytical you are, emotions help shape your decisions on the subconscious level. Your clients – even the ones who value logic and data – are also swayed by emotions and their subconscious. You can leverage this to make your disability insurance sales pitch more convincing.
Appealing to Emotion
Humans are capable of a wide range of emotions, but some of them will be more useful in sales than others. According to HubSpot, seven emotions are particularly effective at driving sales: fear, frustration, hope, excitement, anger, fear of missing out, and the desire to be first.
Of these, fear is probably the easiest to apply to disability insurance sales. People are afraid of illness and injury, as well as the financial impact. However, hope can also be powerful. People have dreams for the future, and they hope they can provide for their families. Disability insurance can help them protect these dreams. For people who have already experienced disability, medical bills, and difficulties trying to get approved for Social Security disability benefits, anger and frustration could also be powerful emotions.
Making It Personal
Have you ever noticed that news stories about major disasters and tragedies often focus on a single individual who has been impacted? There’s a good reason for this. As Vox explains, empathy tends to decrease as the number of victims increases. People simply have a hard time fathoming a million suffering people, but we can easily relate to one suffering person, a phenomenon known as psychic numbing.
The same thing happens when we hear about disability statistics. It’s one thing to know that 2 million people will be diagnosed with cancer in 2024, according to the National Cancer Institute. It’s another thing to hear about one individual whose life was turned upside down by cancer. For most people, the latter is far more powerful.
Forging a Connection
Emotions are personal, so if you want to appeal to emotions, you need to work on creating a personal connection.
This requires listening to your prospects. Find out what matters to them – their hopes, their fears, their values – and personalize your pitch to fit them. For example, if a prospect has worked hard to pull themselves out of debt and now wants to provide their children with a good life, explain how a disability could get in the way, but disability insurance can help them provide for their children.
Confirming Decisions with Facts
Have you ever tried to justify an emotional decision with hard facts? Whether you’re trying to make yourself feel better about your decision or you need to convince someone else to get on board, it can be useful to have facts to back up your feelings.
You can make your sales pitch more convincing by appealing to both emotions and logic. For example, you can share a story about an individual with cancer and show how disability insurance helped. Then you can provide the statistics showing that approximately 2 million people are diagnosed with cancer every year, driving home the relevance of the risk.
One Man’s Story
In 2023, an insurance professional learned the importance of disability insurance firsthand after experiencing an expected injury. His story shows how disability insurance allowed him to focus on his recovery while still contributing to his household. It’s an emotionally appealing case study that drives home the need for coverage. Download it here.