Decisions are made in the heart, then made reasonable in the head. Study that first sentence. It is key to marketing success. A savvy marketer appeals to the common strong emotions to make the sale. Let's examine the following five examples to understand how emotions motivate buying activity. Fear of Loss: Helen is a widow of seven months. Her husband took care of most of the financial matters in their marriage, and in looking over her situation, she is overwhelmed. Helen works out a budget based on her monthly bills, and then studies her investment statements. She frets over the cost of health care, and worries she might lose her home of twenty-seven years. Helen, therefore, is very susceptible to the reverse mortgage commercials, and decides in order to keep her beloved home, a reverse mortgage might be right for her. Desire for Gain: Bill moved his family, over their protests, to another part of the country. The culture was quite different, and the family did not seem to fit into the new community. Bill had his sights on one thing, however; this job was a stepping stone to the one he really wanted and the big salary that came with it. He worked on his superior's pet projects and made sure that his work was visible to the right people. Bill aspired to be with the decision makers and in two-and-a-half years, he achieved his goal. Desire for Comfort: Terry has back problems because she is on her feet most of the day as a physician's assistant. In between TV shows in her Lazy Boy, she seen commercials about the bed that has you floating as if on air and solving your back problems. It's not hard to believe that several months later, Terry has such a bed in her home. Pride: Matt was the newest employee of the construction firm, but he had the oldest truck. In a profession that prizes its vehicle's capacity and performance, Matt felt like he fell far short. After several months of jokes about his "grandma-pickup" and one day with a dead battery, he stretched his credit to get a new truck which he drove proudly onto the construction site the next day. Personal Satisfaction: If Margie hadn't gotten married right out of high school and started a family soon after, life might have allowed her to develop her flair for the artistic. As it was, Margie had filled pages with her drawings and doodling. She was always reluctant to mention her desire to learn how to paint, though, thinking others would find her silly. One night a commercial outlined a course for beginning painters at a reasonable cost, and Margie is sold. Now or never, she told herself, and she ordered the course immediately, looking forward to finally being a painter. As these examples demonstrate, in sales and marketing, the heart drives the head. The smart marketer will remember the key role these major motivations of the heart play in making the sale, and use them for marketing success.