I started Rainier in April of 1993, just three months after Bill Clinton began his two-term presidency. The following years were the roaring 90s and it was like stepping onto an escalator that carried everyone constantly upward. And it all seemed so easy.

But between the dot-com crash and 9/11, things changed. A lot. Suddenly, I knew that to lead this PR agency through some very tough times ahead, I needed to fill a major gap in my skillset.

I’ve worked in marketing, design engineering, as a recording artist and even as a carpenter on a construction crew. But I never “carried a bag” as a true sales professional. That’s what led me to two years of sales training, learning the Sandler selling system where I acquired new skills that I use to this day.

But the most important takeaway from that course was a phrase our instructor repeated at nearly every class. He said, “People buy things for emotionally compelling reasons.” “People buy things for emotionally compelling reasons.”

The first time I heard that, I raised my hand and said, “Well that’s great for B2C, but it can’t possibly be relevant for B2B.” But over time, I came to understand why it’s totally relevant for B2B companies. Science tells us that our emotions constitute 70% of what drives the decisions we make. All of them.

And studies have shown that companies who establish genuine trust by connecting with their customers’ emotional desires and passions and recognize their anxieties and fears can outperform the competition by 85%.

Every B2B decision maker is a person who has a personal stake in every decision they make. Their decisions might impact the arc of their career, positively or negatively. They might affect how a person is seen by their colleagues, their friends and their family.

Look, B2B buyers are overwhelmed with an excess of logic, specs, features, benefits, data, metrics–comparisons and a lot of other clutter. But what they really want to do is make a safe but bold, easy but certain, correct choice that ultimately makes them look like a genius. Like a great decision maker.

Since my time with Sandler, this intimate kind of connection between our clients and their customers has been at the heart of our work here at Rainier. And the bottom line from our experience is this: If you only market the competitive attributes and specs of your product or service, it’s pretty likely you’ll generate unsatisfying results.

There are plenty of examples of B2B companies that did it right: IBM, Cisco, Slack and others who managed to lead their marketing with messages designed to connect emotionally. By conveying attributes like safety, trust and passion, these companies vastly outplayed their competition who stayed stuck in the information trap.

I could go on, but I’ll end by urging you to let that emotional connection to your brand become your customers’ compass for navigating their decisions to buy from you. I guarantee you will see more success in both the short and long term.