Russo (IULM): “Any sale is emotional”

“I believe to distinguish the emotional sale from the rational one is very wrong, in the sense that any sale is emotional. And today, thanks to a greater knowledge of the brain, we scientifically know that the latter first responds emotionally and then tends to rationalize to justify and confirm or not what emotions have already defined “. To say today Vincenzo Russo, associate professor of Psychology of consumption and neuromarketing at the Iulm University of Milan, during the 10th Forum of direct sales promoted by Avedisco, the association of direct sales service for consumers. The appointment, entitled: ‘Social media and social selling: the phigital evolution of direct sales’ was hosted by the Palazzo dell’Informazione in Rome. “Neurosciences – he explains – have given us the gift of being able to understand how we are made and why some sales techniques work better than others. The difference compared to the past is that, managing to have a better knowledge, we re-evaluate even more the emotional power and, therefore, the effect that I as a salesman have emotionally when I speak, when I introduce myself, when I dress in a certain way ” . “Our brain – he explains – first responds emotionally to stimulation and then tends to rationalize. Obviously, rationality comes into play, but to justify and confirm or not what emotions have already defined. We are faced with a sort of response. binary: good and not good and if it is not good I move away. Being able to distinguish the emotional part from the rational one today is still out of all time. “” In recent years – continues Vincenzo Russo – companies and the market in general have including the power of the emotional dimension; emotional marketing has now become known, known and applied. We also see it from the amount of training courses and conferences that are introduced with the acronym ‘neuro’: neuroscience, neurocinema, neuroleadership, neuroselling. With the risk of abusing it because it seems to have a scientific background to what you do. The risk of ‘neurofuffa’ is now just around the corner. Today there are more and more neuromarketing companies. Companies know how important emotion is, as they did in the 1980s when it came to emotional intelligence; therefore, I do not think there is a manager who does not know it, the problem is to apply it. Fortunately, centers like ours at IULM, but there are now many in Italy, are working a lot with companies doing applied research and helping them not to waste money on communications that are apparently and rationally very attractive but then in fact do not lead to the hoped-for success “. “The reasons – he points out – that push us to buy a product, from a psychological point of view, are really many. If I have an appetite, for example, I go to buy a product that satisfies me, but the act of consumption, as said by one of the greatest sociologists of consumption, Giampaolo Fabris, who also gave its name to an Institute of our university, is a political act or an act of choice in which the relational dimension with the product, with the brand and with the company then becomes the fundamental event “.” It is a political act – he warns – because it is an act of evaluation, even in this case rational, but also plays a lot of emotion. The choice-brand relationship is important. I buy something that I like and that allows me to get what I don’t have, to enter a world that doesn’t belong to me, to be part of a tribe that doesn’t belong to me “. In ‘Neuroselling’, the forthcoming book by Vincenzo Russo, “we put together all the knowledge we have about the brain – he remembers – and which allow us to understand how to better refine sales techniques”. “We are facing – he underlines – a paradigmatic change; neuroscience has given us the gift of being able to understand a little better how we are made and, therefore, of goats because some techniques work better than others. Sales techniques are now a consolidated “.” The difference compared to the past – he observes – is that, managing to have a better knowledge of how we are made, in the meantime we re-evaluate even more the emotional power and, therefore, the effect that I as a salesman I do emotionally when I speak, when I introduce myself, when I dress in a certain way. “” Today – he underlines – we are able to fathom the stimulations by looking at the brain and above all the most emotional part, the primary area of ​​our brain which is activated many times unconsciously and in an instinctive way. Then there is the principle of the gentle push, that is, with mechanisms I can guide the choice of others, it is part of the techniques of anticipation, preparing the ground to be a little more persuasive. Today we know that we can create preconditions in order to be much more effective with the persuasive techniques we already knew ”.