Being passionate about your business is a good thing – right?

I know lots of people who are passionate about their business. It’s a good thing and no more than I would expect from the people I mix with, given that most of them have chosen to do what they do.

However, I am constantly puzzled by the need that many folk have to “tell”  me they are passionate about their business. Maybe you are one of them.

Telling me you’re passionate doesn’t do a thing for me.

Would you tell me you are funny in order to make me laugh or say that you’re sexy in the hope I might introduce you to a friend looking for a fling? Would you start a business conversation by telling me you’re honest?

No? I thought not. So why tell me you’re passionate about what you do?

Do you think by declaring your passion that I’m more likely to buy from you?

Here’s a newsflash. I’m not – and neither is anyone else.

I don’t care how you feel about your business

Actually I don’t care how you feel about your business. You could be bored to death by it but if you supply what I want at the right price I’ll buy it.

I understand the whole thing about buying decisions being emotional ones but if I’m the buyer, its my emotions that are in the equation not yours. How you or your product make me feel is important but will your declaration for being passionate about supplying me affect my emotions?

No – and here’s why:

I’ve been asking this question for a while and this is one of the best answers I’ve had so far. Its from Jeremy Marchant  http://www.emotionalintelligenceatwork.com I’ve edited his words slightly for context.

Jeremy says: “I think it is tendentious, at best, to suggest that (potential customers) will be convinced that you can supply what they need just because you have told them how passionate you are about supplying it.

Yes, the decision to buy is an emotional one, not a rational one. That’s because all decisions are made emotionally, not rationally.

But it is a mistake to believe that, if you tell me how you are feeling, that is a conversation at a feelings level, at the level of emotions. It’s not. It is a rational, “thinking” conversation.

A description of how passionate you are about what you do is not an emotional experience for the listener. It is a factual monologue, which will have the inevitable consequence of keeping them in their thinking mode, NOT getting them into their feelings – in other words it precisely does what you don’t want it to do!

The way out of this impasse is … to convey your passion by HOW you talk. How you are. “

In other words, its better to let people see and feel how passionate you are than to tell them!

Getting people to connect with you on an emotional level is the key to any transaction but simply telling them how you feel doesn’t work.

Don’t tell me – show me

If you want me to buy from you, stop telling me you are passionate and start demonstrating your conviction that you have the solution to my needs.

Photo by Adam Hawkins http://anodizeproductions.com

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