You Can’t Fool the Amygdala

by: Rob Reed

When someone asks you a question, a part of your brain called the amygdala immediately processes it to see whether you should take action. Not one of the actions we commonly understand as civilized, but flight, fight, or freeze, actions necessary to survive.

This is a built-in “trust alarm,” hard-wired into our brains. The good news is, it keeps you safe. The bad news is, your buyers’ brains have one, too.

The amygdala works on pattern recognition. If a buyer’s brain has learned to mistrust salespeople, and if you look, act, and sound like a salesperson, you will automatically be mistrusted.

Saying “trust me” has absolutely no impact on the amygdala. The opportunity for trust starts inside you. To overcome automatic mistrust, you must intend to be trustworthy, and you must be trustworthy.

You can’t fool the amygdala.