Football Team Misery And Your Prospect Urgency

A remarkable 13,000 football fans were recently tracked  over three years.

The idea being to see how they reacted to the results of the team they followed.

Professor Peter Dolton of Sussex University found that defeat hits us harder than victory. Double hard, in fact.

When their team lost supporters experienced misery twice as bad as the happiness when winning, with the double-whammy being the ill feeling lasted twice as long too.

One of my favourite Sales insights of Prospect Theory. Proved all over again. (By way of example, note this blog I posted on this a full ten years ago.)

This continues to have profound impact on our pitches.

So often I see and hear solution sellers major on the wonderful rainbow land where unicorns roam free and the sunshine dazzles off the golden treasure trove open on the beach.

Indeed the fabled future glory pitch does have its merits (see for instance my post on DHA from eleven years back now). Yet Prospect Theory dictates that people will move (at least) doubly quickly when you seek to aid them to extinguish the fire, as opposed ignite a flame.

I myself learned this lesson two decades back. When I began pitching to sales leaders on the basis of making them extra sales. Success rose after my swift pivot to rather talk of losing less deals.

How attuned are you to understanding your prospect’s club’s results, and in particular, when they’ve just got denied a big three points?