Note: This is part three of a five-part series. Over the following weeks, Todd Duncan, sales entrepreneur and New York Times best-selling author, will showcase principles for mortgage and real estate professionals to embrace for success. To read his first piece, click here and to read his second piece, click here.
“Businesses that optimize emotional connection outperform the competition by 26% in gross margin and 85% in sales growth. Their customers spend more, return more often, and stay longer!”
– Gallup
Emotional connection is the most effective form of influence, and creates massive loyalty in a business relationship.
Empathy is at the center of all humanity and is the most vital element for emotional connection to show up. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Being emotionally connected is a “relationship with a person,” and profound in how we do business with each other.
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Emotion manifests itself in the interactions and experiences we have with others, and that they have with us. Knowing those expectations and fostering a culture around delivering them, consistently, forms the basis for loyalty, repeat purchases and perhaps even more important, word of mouth referrals.
Emotional connection is now the No. 1 driver of a great consumer experience – outpacing ease and effectiveness. The more significant the purchase on one’s life, like mortgages and real estate, the more this emotional connection will be needed, and maybe demanded.
Every relationship that ties buyer and seller together will thrive when emotional connection exists
There is too much promotion in the world and not enough emotion. I tell our coaching members repeatedly to “Stop selling what you do and start selling why you do it.” High Trust Coaching equips mortgage and real estate professionals to sell less and connect more. High-performing people don’t look for sales or orders; they look to transform the purchase or buying experience.
Apple does this. They don’t sell a product, or even a list of features a product might have.
It is about the human experience.
They bring you in emotionally, and once you are “in,” you could end up owning many of their products. Here is one of their branding promises:
“We believe in changing the status quo and thinking different. We build beautifully designed tools that unleash your creative potential and help you change the world.”
All they have to do next is ask, “Do you want to buy?” I am an Apple brand loyalist. I own 21 Apple “tools!”
How do we say this in mortgage or real estate speak?
“We design beautifully architected home loan experiences that give you the safest and most secure mortgage, reducing your risk, while giving you peace of mind as you make memories in your new home.”
“We design superior home purchasing experiences giving you the confidence and comfort you will get the best home for the best price and experience joy and comfort on the journey.”
The Three Tenets of Emotional Connection
Every emotionally connected relationship must have these elements. And they must happen in this order to fully develop Emotional Connection and Trust.
Tenet No. 1: Chemistry
“If two people want to do business together, the details will not get in the way. If they don’t want to do business together, the details will not make it happen.”
– Dr. Tony Alessandra
If you are not attracted to or you don’t like the people you are working with, you will not work with them well. You must have chemistry. If we are connected on the inside, we can be very successful together on the outside!
American business philosopher, Jim Rohn, had a governing thought on this worth contemplating.
“There are enough people who will do business your way not to worry about those who won’t.”
Oil and water don’t mix. Chemicals that don’t mix are said to be immiscible.
Here are some examples of “oil and water:”
- If I am honest, and another person is not…
- If I am efficient, and another person is not…
- If I am professional, and another person is not…
- If I am punctual, and another person is not…
There are relationships that are “immiscible.” No matter how hard you try, the relationship will never be in sync or functional and will always require effort. You should walk away!
Tenet No. 2: Conversation and Collaboration
Have you ever been in a restaurant and looked at another couple at a table, and they aren’t talking? Or they are both busy texting?
The conversation is at the level of chemistry they have. The higher the chemistry, the more conversation and collaboration happens, naturally. The lower the chemistry, the less conversation and collaboration there will be, naturally, for the same reasons. If you are not “attracted,” what is there to talk about?
In business, it’s the same. If you don’t have high chemistry with people you work with, you won’t have real conversations.
Fully functional relationships desire and thrive on conversation and collaboration – it’s enjoyable, rich, revealing, and surprise, “Connected”. The best conversations can’t be forced. If they are, there is no chemistry. When chemistry exists, you can’t wait to talk and converse.
Conversations are the catalyst for growth, loyalty and performance. Conversations are like lubrication – they allow relationship to function at easier, smoother levels.
Conversations require four things beyond chemistry:
- Asking questions you have never asked;
- Learning things you have never learned;
- Solving with value things you have never solved;
- Insane, connected, listening!
Collaboration is built on conversation. In the High Trust Selling model, this is how relationships continue to get more and more valuable.
While there are many layers of collaboration, I will simplify it here. I’m a mortgage originator. I’m working with real estate agents. In a collaborative relationship, I am meeting regularly, having deeper, needs based conversations, assessing how we are doing together, examining how to be more efficient, generate more business, create more cash flow and on and on.
Conversation is good, collaboration is better.
Tenet No. 3: Conflict Resolution
Conflict is real. Resolving conflict is a master skill. If two people avoid the discussions around conflict, it crushes conversations, collaboration and ultimately, connection.
Conflict resolution requires a mutual commitment to work together and improve. There is no higher calling than for two people to respect each other through resolving conflict.
For 11 years, I met with everyone of my agents twice a month to converse, collaborate, and yes, solve conflicts. I called this partnership planning (business reviews), and it became a twice per month discipline.
Healthy relationships have a consistent need for both parties to make emotional deposits into the other. The deposits add up and the balance gets healthy.
If you don’t do this, you can’t make the withdrawals when you need them in the form of the “conflict resolution.” You will overdraw your account, and there is no overdraft protection, and it’s harder and harder to resolve anything in that state. If, on the other hand, if it is full and the deposits are consistent and heartfelt, you have emotional equity! Very few things will be as important as emotional equity, ever.
Your motive with conflict resolution is a mutual win. When you connect at the heart, releasing emotional connection, you will have more business, less stress, more loyalty and more referrals.
