Focus On Emotion

A senior sporting administrator just swapped circket for football.  Richard Bevan is apparently adept at raising the influence and profile of a previously ignored constituency within a game.

When representing professional cricketers, he helped garner them extra clout in part through a type of Ambassador programme, whereby he could leverage chances to listen to and meet players.  Now he intends to do the same for football managers.  And the riches must surely be around the corner; what price a lunchtime session on selling a vision with Arsene Wenger, or leadership and motivation with Alex Ferguson?

On this subject of the universally admired, an interesting quote for us humble reps appeared:

“Bevan learnt in cricket how ‘names’ can help to secure business, estimating that 50 per cent of deals were sealed on an emotional level.”

So, contracts get signed half the time purely due to emotion?  I think many of us would go even further than this.  Isn’t the decision to buy always 100% an emotional one?

As an additional (key) point, you do hear from reps that have worked for huge concerns with a well-known, lauded Boss, that when introducing said celebrity to a sales campaign, they nearly always won the deal.  There are several blogosphere examples of people within Apple getting Steve Jobs to rock up, chat for an hour with a prospect, and despite not really talking turkey, winning a deal as a result.  Who’s your similar style of superstar to utilise accordingly?