Never Sell a Liberal the Same Way as a Conservative?

Never, in all my years in sales, did I ever think I'd write an article on this topic. But recently, I've been reading some interesting studies that show that liberals and conservatives have some real, genetically hard-wired differences. For example:

• An Italian study showed that negative stimuli is more likely to automatically grab the attention of conservatives as compared to liberals.

• Numerous studies have shown that differences in threat perceptions are significant predictor of political attitudes. Conservatives perceive more threats and react more strongly to them.

When I apply this data to the field of sales, it leads to some interesting conclusions:

• If I'm selling to conservatives, perhaps I'd be more successful if I focused on problems, risk-related issues or fears of competitive inroads.

• If I'm selling to liberals, I might get better traction if I focused on ideas,  what's possible and ways to get ahead of the game.

If what I'm saying is true, then it's possible that we're overlooking the most important sales question of all:

Which TV news station do you watch?

YOUR TURN: Should we sell to liberals the same way we sell to conservatives? Or should we be approaching them differently?