Volume 4, Issue 3 · November 2013
News and Information for the Speaking Community by SpeakerMatch Connecting With Your Audience
It’s Easy To Catch A Good Mood Good moods or bad moods, they're contagious! You try avoid picking up germs from someone who is coughing, but when you encounter a person who is in a bad mood, you can just as easily pick up their cranky germs. Moods are contagious.
Keeping prospects moving through the sales process is getting harder. New research shows more companies are experiencing longer sales cycles in 2013 than even in 2012.
It's easy to catch a good mood. When you're at work and co-workers have good news about something or someone, they want to share with you. They seem excited as they tell the good news. Everyone is in a better mood.
A 2012 survey by CSO insights found that 33 percent of respondents said their sales cycle was seven months or more. In 2013, 40 percent reported seven month sales cycles.
The contagious quality of mood and emotion has been one of the most widely studied of all the different forms of contagion. Without consciously trying, people are extremely good at picking up on other people's negative or positive emotions, according to the Association for Psychological Science.
And more deals are stalled these days -- up to 26 percent in 2013 from 14 percent in 2012.
They call the situation "emotional contagion." The first step involves unconscious copying of facial expressions and movements. Seeing a smile makes you smile. Seeing a frown makes you more likely to frown. If you're both frowning, maybe you'll start to feel bad too. You may share emotions and experiences until you are both in the same mood. Mood copying is common when you're are in frequent contact with others. When a friend or co-worker is in a mood, it's more likely that you'll catch it than if you're dealing with a stranger.
According to marketing strategist David Dodd, the most important question you can answer for a client is: Why should I deal with this problem/issue now? Or, as Verne Harnish, the CEO of Gazelles, Inc., says in Fortune Magazine, “People will do more to avoid a loss than to score a win.” QUICK TIP: Forget the benefits. Help your prospects understand what it is going to cost them to delay immediate action.
(Continued on page 12)
1
What’s Inside Asking Why Can Be Counterproductive .......................... 2 Killing the Cold Call Monster ............. 4 Pay it Forward on LinkedIn ................. 6 Don’t Pad Your Presentation with “Corpspeak”......................................... 8
Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone else planted a tree a long time ago. — Warren Buffett