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The 'Misery is Not Miserly' Effect 

The John F. Kennedy School for Government at Harvard University recently released a study that found that even momentary sadness causes people to increase spending.

As sales people and persuaders, we know that selling is based more on emotions than logical reasoning. That's why we appeal to the core values and deep criteria of our prospects and clients. The study "Misery is Not Miserly: Sad and Self-Focused Individuals Spend More" which will be published in Psychological Science, June of 2008, states that when people are sad and self focused they spend more money than those in neutral emotional states.

As persuaders, we can use anchoring and peak emotional states in our sales. We utilize self focus, introspection, and occasionally sadness, when working with our prospects and clients.

The researchers incited a heightened self focus with the participants and combined that with the participant being shown either a sad video clip or a neutral video clip advertising the product in question. The people who watched the sad clip offered 300% more than the neutral participants.

My guess is that a positive, happy and upbeat video clip would have had the same effect of increasing spending. Why? It's an increased emotional state. If the researchers were aware of towards and away orientations, they'd have further developed a deep understanding of peak emotional states.

The towards and away continuum is powerful in determining how your prospect responds in a particular context. Not everyone views the world through rose colored glasses. In other words, there are some people who will respond quite positively to a negative attitude.

Take the case of financial advisers, for example. Once you determine whether your prospect is towards or away, you can tailor the language you use to their particular orientation. After eliciting the prospect's criteria, and finding that it is financial security, it is just one more step to finding out their orientation. Asking the question, 'What will having financial security do for you?' will give you the direction.

If they say, 'Well, I'm tired of worrying about my finances. . .' That's an away from. If they say, 'Well, I just want to stay in control of my finances. . .' That's more of a toward orientation.

With the away from person, you don't want to be optimistic, just as with the toward person, you don't want to be pessimistic. Tailoring your language in such a way that you bring more "pain" to the away person and more "ease" to the toward is really the key to selling.

I don't think the Harvard study got it wrong, but I do believe they only uncovered part of the story.

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Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of wealthy clients using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques. Get your own completely unique content version of this article.

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