Any good salesperson knows that emotions are what motivates people to buy… much more so than logic. So, the question is, what emotion works best to get people to buy from you? Well, lucky for us, smart people (Stanford University) have been researching that very thing!
Since most of us work with mature adults, the results I’m going to mention today applies to them. The results are slightly different for younger adults. It ends up those mature adults typically recall twice as many emotional components from a discussion or advertisement than younger folks.
The first thing you must understand is what today’s Boomers pay attention to… and what they ignore. They tend to ignore negative messages. They are less likely to respond to neutral or negative concepts and messages.
The author of the study, Dr. Carstensen, concluded that, as one ages, a developmental pattern emerges: the willingness to process negative images and ideas decreases as one ages.
Dr. Carstensen’s work suggests that older adults have subconsciously trained their brains to ignore negative messages. So, when marketing or selling to today’s Boomer, it is essential that you keep your messages positive if you want them to pay attention!