Why do people buy? People always have their own reasons for buying. Their reasons are not necessarily rational, intelligent or sensible. However, whatever their buying motives, they are theirs. And you must be aware of which ones are motivating your prospect at all stages in the sales process. Then you can tailor your sales approach accordingly.
The Six Buying Motives are:
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Pride of Ownership
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Security and Protection
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Emotional Satisfaction
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Desire for Gain
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Comfort and Convenience
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Fear of Loss
Some notes of caution:
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No one Buying Motive is any more important than any other;
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They do not come in any particular order.
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These buying motives are emotional, not logical; people buy emotionally, not logically – even in B2B purchases.
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People do not readily admit to their buying motives:
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Who is going to admit to vanity or fear?
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Do not expect prospects to be open and honest about the real reasons that motivate them to buy.
Get better at observing or hearing your prospects. Know all six buying motives. Then you can appeal to them in turn, looking for which provoke the strongest responses in a prospect.
For example, suppose you see a reaction to a benefit of your product or service that appeals to comfort and convenience. Keep returning to that motive throughout the remainder of the meeting. Do not stop when you have uncovered just one motive that is important to your prospect. More than one buying motive may apply, and motives you leave undiscovered may turn out to be more important.
Uncover other buying motives with open, feeling-finding questions to discover additional reactions. Suppose you have already discovered that profit – desire for gain – is important to your prospect.
You might also ask: "How important is security to you?" and you would find out how the person feels about security and protection. As the meeting progresses, you can focus on areas that are important to your prospect.
Once the sale has been made, people stop responding emotionally and begin concentrating on the sound, practical, rational, business reasons why the purchase was made. Later on most people will not even remember their emotional motives. They sincerely believe that they bought the product or service for straightforward, logical reasons. If you ask, they can list these logical reasons for you.
People buy emotionally, then justify their decisions logically. Remember to provide your prospects with logical as well as emotional reasons why your product or service will benefit them.
This was a guest post by Paul Fileman of SPS who are a national team of proven senior management professionals, passionate about working to help businesses achieve their next level of development and performance. Whether they are facing market changes, financial problems, people/skills issues, or are preparing a major project, they offer dedicated support from a multi-disciplined team of experts.
This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
This comfirms some of my suspicions about “business people” from the various different sorts I’ve met over the years – most people in business are doing it to massage their egos.
If this were not the case, they would take emotion out of the equation and make decisions based purely on logic and reason.
This is clearly not the case, you only have to look at the mess the banks have made of the financial system to see how their emotion and ego – manifested as over confidence – have had a catastrophic effect on what should have been decisions based on logic:
“Can poor people who have no money afford to pay back more expensive mortgages?” – the answer shold always have been a resounding “No!”.
I don’t agree, I don’t think they are doing it to massage their ego’s – more their ego/confidence is too big/high for them to allow themselves to step back and take a good hard look at the realities of the situation, applying logic and reason.
I think the problem – or at least a large part of it – was the failure to look at the individuality of the situation. The banks have their risk models well worked out, but in the “sub prime” market the normal rules just don’t apply.
Mark,
I strongly disagree the normal rules apply – it’s thinking that they didn’t that got the bankers in trouble.
OK, that’s interesting, but I don’t pretend to understand what you mean.
Any chance you could explain it – perhaps making it the topic of an article and go into it in more depth?
Ok I’ll try and get a good post together shortly.
This article has tremendous value. Both young and old can always benefit from getting “back to the basics” especially in marketing.
I really agree with your statement on most purchases being made on emotional “impulse” rather than logic, and thinking about it… I’m realizing that’s how I buy too.
I don’t want to admit that I bought something “without logically thinking” but the reality is I do. Not to say that I don’t research my purchases first when I can… here I go trying to rationalize my decision.
Spot on John. Very informative and well written.
Cheers!