What Makes Your Customers Buy?

Understanding the motivation behind buying decisions will help us sell more effectively explains GRANT LEBOFF.

When we are in a selling situation we make sure we are prepared. We know all about our products and services and the Benefits they can bring to a client. However, it is the way these Benefits are presented that will decide how much impact we make with a customer. Unless we align our message to the way our customers buy we will miss opportunities. By understanding what drives a purchasing decision, we can ensure we put our message across more effectively.

Human beings have two basic motivations, to gain reward and to avoid loss. Everything we do fits into these categories. We choose to go out to eat to gain reward; we buy insurance solely to avoid loss. These two basic motivations are not mutually exclusive and so there are activities we undertake, where to a greater or lesser extent, both are at play.

It sounds negative to say, and therefore most people don’t like to be told, that the greater of the two motivations by a long way, is avoiding loss. For example, most people would say they go to work to gain benefit, their salary. However, if they won the National Lottery tomorrow they would give up work. This being the case the motivation for going to work cannot be to gain benefit. For even with a million pounds in the bank the benefits of going to work would be the same. One would still receive the salary they got before. If you were to win the lottery and subsequently gave up work, then your motivation for going to work is to avoid loss. For without going to work and getting your salary you wouldn’t be able to pay the bills and would lose your house. You wouldn’t be able to feed and clothe your children and live the lifestyle to which you are accustomed. Your motivation for going to work therefore is to avoid losing this lifestyle.

The Comfort Zone

If human beings were really always motivated by gaining reward then as soon as people were fed up with their job, where they live, their marriage or any circumstances in which they found themselves, they would do something to improve the situation. Yet we all know the courage it takes to change any of these things. We all know people who are stuck in bad marriages and dead end jobs. People normally only act when they really can’t take the situation any more and that can take months and often years to happen. In other words, the situation has to be so bad that it seems worse staying where they are than moving. They stand to lose more with the status quo than with the change. The motivation for change is ironically still avoiding loss.

This is because as human beings we are averse to risk. We are very conservative creatures and generally don’t like change. We, therefore, get into comfort zones and like to stay there. How many people reading this have their favourite seat in their living room? If a guest comes round and sits in your seat, out of politeness, you won’t ask them to move, yet you don’t feel entirely comfortable sitting somewhere else in your own living room!

The Benefit Fallacy

Knowing that human beings do most things to avoid loss, why is it that most sales messages are written to explain the benefits a customer will gain from a product or service? We know that most people don’t do things to gain benefit. Therefore most of these sales messages have no impact at all. This is because they don’t tap into our basic instinct.
Think of the difference between two headlines in an advert in a local paper.
“Save Money Now” or “Are You Losing Money?” Which one has more impact?
The second one is more likely to grab people’s attention because we are much more motivated to keep what we have, than to go out to get more.

Most people would be unwilling to give up much time, or put themselves out, in order to earn an extra £20.00. Yet, we will spend hours searching round the house for the £20.00 note we have misplaced.

People do have to understand the benefits a product or service can bring. However, most people have been taught to sell the benefits of their product or service as the starting point of a sale, and quite frankly, this is wrong.

In order to have an effective sales message you have to start completely from the opposite end. Think about three problems your product or service can solve and write them down. Then think of all the problems that can result because of the initial three problems that you wrote down. What you have then is a chart of all the pain that you can prevent. It is this pain that will draw people in to buying your solution.

Sales Clarity

In order to get clarity into your sales message you have to understand what problems you can solve and why you are uniquely capable of solving those problems. If you can give someone confidence that you are in a good position to solve the problem and that the cost of solving the problem is less than the cost of not solving it, then you have a sale. Demonstrating that the pain is greater than the risk of fixing that pain is what we call value.

The most effective salespeople are problem solvers. Nearly every sale solves a problem. By talking about the pain rather than the solution you will find it much easier to draw your customers in and sell. It is less difficult, initially, to build a rapport with a customer talking about problems rather than benefits. This is because the problems are that person’s reality. By talking about problems you can build a trust because they know you understand their world. Talking about benefits and solutions from the outset can sound like empty promises. It isn’t credible to talk about solutions, even if they are right for that customer, without understanding them. You become just another “salesperson”.

To be really effective you must align your sales process as closely as possible to how human beings buy. Most of the time they buy to avoid loss and avoid pain. If you want to sell more forget about the benefits and start talking about the problems.

Grant Leboff is a member of BRX Boreham Wood, as well as Principal of The Intelligent Sales Club which provides Sales and Marketing Support for Business Owners. For more information visit www.intelligentsalesclub.com