When an emotion is triggered in your brain, your nervous systems responds by creating feelings in your body (what many people refer to as a “gut feeling”) and certain thoughts in your mind. ~ Mary Lamia, Ph.D., clinical psychologist

From 2002 – 2004, I was stationed in Georgia.  One day, a door to door salesman came to our door selling a “world-changing” vacuum cleaner.  The first thing he did was offer me a free hat because I had opened the door.  He then went into his pitch.  I politely interrupted telling him we weren’t interested.

Maximize your prospecting with emotional triggers

He then asked me a second request.  Would I allow him to give me a demonstration?  If nothing else, he would clean part of our house for us.  I said yes.

One hour later, he was still in my home.  Truth be told, I’ve never been more impressed with a vacuum cleaner.  The only thing that kept me from buying it was it was very expensive.  We simply didn’t have the money.

This salesman did a fantastic job using emotional triggers to get a desired result from me.  And it worked…almost.  Emotional triggers fall in the realm of evolutionary psychology.  Essentially, triggers are events and tactics that “trigger” certain emotions.  If you understand emotional triggers, you can use them to your advantage.