In this solo sales‑training video, Ryan Dohrn opens with his usual upbeat greeting and then addresses a listener question from Becca in Idaho, who reports that prospects are nervous about the 2024 political and economic climate. Ryan confirms the trend and outlines a three‑type buyer model—ego‑driven, emotional, and logical—insisting that buyers act either emotionally or logically, not both. He explains that most prospects anxious about politics and the economy are emotional buyers and recommends a compassionate approach: acknowledge their feelings, provide a “virtual hug,” and share success stories of other customers. He references the classic feel‑felt‑found technique (attributed to Zig Ziglar) to structure those conversations. Ryan also reminds listeners that economic cycles (e.g., 2006‑2008 recession, COVID‑19) have been survived and even thrived through, encouraging confidence. He mentions an upcoming webinar on selling in uncertainty, hints at a forthcoming book titled “Sales Humanity,” and stresses the importance of treating prospects as humans amid AI hype. The video concludes with contact information (ryan@ryandohrn.com), a call for more questions, and an invitation to book training or speaking engagements.
Questions this video answers
Recognize the buyer’s type—most anxious prospects are emotional buyers. Respond with empathy (acknowledge feelings, give a virtual hug), share what other customers have done successfully, and use the feel‑felt‑found script to validate concerns and present solutions.
Chapters
What's going on, friends and fans? Are you having a good week out there in sales land? I'm getting some contracts back, and that gets me pretty darn excited about being in the sales business. Do you still kind of get a little giddy when you close a deal? I think when you lose that sort of childish kind of giddiness, then it's time to move on to something else. No matter the size of the deal, I still get excited when I get a contract back. How about you? All right, let's keep on with your listener questions. Becca from Idaho. Hey, Becca sent in this question. Ryan, I'm already hearing from my sales prospects that they're nervous about 2024. They're nervous about politics. They're nervous about the economy. Are you seeing this? Are you hearing this? What should we do? So, Becca from Idaho, I am totally hearing it from folks, and I think I'm gonna do a webinar on this topic. I'm here coming up in the next couple of months. And that's selling amidst economic and political uncertainty. Okay, so let's talk about a little bit, Becca. So you asked, what should we do? One of the first things that we need to do is we need to recognize the type of person that we're dealing with. So the buyer that we're dealing with. So as we've talked about before, excuse me, there are 3 different kinds of buyers that are out there. We can kind of boil everybody down to these 3 characteristics: ego-driven buyers, Emotional buyers and logic-driven buyers. Now, sometimes people will say, well, you know, I feel like, you know, people are a little bit of both, a little logical, a little emotional. Just that doesn't make sense. You've got to think about this. People either buy things logically or they buy things emotionally. If you're like, well, I'm a little bit of both, okay, that means you're emotional. Listen to yourself. Ego-driven buyers, logical buyers, and emotional buyers. Okay. When you're dealing with people that are highly emotional about the economy or politics, Typically, that's not going to be a logical person. Instead, it's going to be somebody that's more emotional. Logical folks are like, yeah, does the election really matter? Even if it happens in November, what's going to happen for the next 6 months? Okay, so you can't stop making decisions because in November there might be a decision, right? So a logical person would kind of logic this out one way or the other, right? An emotional person is somebody that is really going to need from you, Becca, from your teams, from all of us to kind of virtually give them kind of a virtual hug. Let them know, hey, it's okay. You're not in this alone. Other people are feeling the same way. Let's talk about what other businesses are doing to be successful working with us. So people that are highly emotional, typically the way to sell them is to basically kind of put your hand on their shoulder, help them realize that they're not alone in their feelings, And then share with them what other customers of yours are doing to be successful, what other customers of yours are doing to get through this particular situation. Friends, I would be remiss if I didn't say to you that I'm a little nervous about 2024. The political uncertainty, the economic uncertainty, and I'm not making a political statement at all. If you think that I am, you don't know me, okay? It's important to recognize, friends, that Things cycle. We've been through cycles like this before. We've been through economic cycles— '06, '07, '08. We survived it. We thrived through it in a lot of cases. We went through COVID. It was awful, but we figured out how to get through it. Not only did we survive it, but we thrived throughout it. And it's because we recognize that we're selling to people. You know, I'm going to be working on a book. I think I might call it like Sales Humanity or something like that. Don't steal that idea. But it really is about the human copyright. Ryan Dorn sales humanity. Okay, don't steal the idea. It's really about us working with humans. Like we're a human, we're working with other humans. I think we hear AI and all this technology that's going on, and sometimes we forget that we're just humans. Our prospects are humans too. So we need to deal with the emotion in the way that we would deal with somebody that's emotional. Hey, it's okay. We're going to get through this together. Here's what other people have done. I used the good old feel, felt, found, wherever that came from— Zig Ziglar or whoever, you know, came up with that. I understand how you feel. This particular company felt the same way, and this is what they found out after working with us. Just kind of virtually kind of wrap your arms around that customer, make them feel really comfortable by using examples of what others have done to be successful. So Becca from Idaho, beautiful part of the country out there, Thanks so much for your question. Hey, keep your questions coming, friends. ryan@ryandohrn.com. I answer all your questions. If I don't reply back or put your question on the podcast, literally I've gone to heaven. I didn't get the email. We always reply to every single question here as a team that comes in because we want you to get the answers you need to be successful out there in the sales and marketing business. Never forget, friends, if sales was easy, everybody'd be doing it, and they're not. We're not crazy. It's a great career that's going to feed your family now through 2024, 2025, and into the future. Love to train your sales teams. Love to come and pump people up at your national sales meeting. I get booked up fast though, so reach out to me, ryan@ryandohrn.com. All right, friends, get out there and sell something. Make us all proud. We will see you next week.
