Why and how we buy

Why we buy – We’re hard wired!

If you are involved in selling you will understand that everyone is guilty of impulse buying. We all know modern supermarkets exploit the smell of fresh bread, the chocolate near the check out, the exclusive fine wine selection and so on. What we probably don’t know is why and what we don’t know is how to exploit it in our own B2B environment. The truth is our subconscious is hard wired to respond in fixed ways to specific stimuli and we can learn a few tricks of the trade by understand what makes us and our subconscious tick.

In a series of powerful, well researched articles from Chris Wright of Para Landing which will be appearing in this blog over the next few months you can find out lots of tricks of the trade involved in selling to your customer’s subconscious.

I recently read a fascinating book called Buy-ology by Martin Lindstrom which turned the art of buying or rather our understanding of why we buy into a technology. The book suggests that as individuals our buying patterns are hard wired into our subconscious or our behaviour patterns. Therefore in order to sell we only need to understand how individuals are wired to determine how to sell to them. It’s an interesting read and fits in with research I have undertaken with sportsmen getting them to perform better under pressure; i.e. getting them to use their subconscious levels to react instinctively. If you have ever played sport at some stage you will have instinctively played a shot, or kicked a ball or made a tackle that you have no idea where it came from – the only thing is you will recall pleasure at having done it automatically. When we buy instinctively on impulse we use that same subconscious level to satisfy some inner need.

I do recommend Martin’s book to you and I use some of its findings in the main paper, however perhaps it’s me, but I came away with my thoughts that understanding how individuals buy was still an art not a science. I believe it necessary to understand how and why people buy and then create campaigns capable of influencing their buying decisions. This understanding is an art because no two people are the same. The main paper available through the web provides lots of practical advice on the art of how to understand your customer as well as how and why they buy.

Hierarchical needs

This isn’t a paper on Maslow’s hierarchical needs; if you aren’t aware of these there’s lots of information on the Internet and it is worth grabbing a basic knowledge. Maslow helps us understand ourselves: we all have basic needs to sustain ourselves (food, water, air etc.), we all then need a safety or comfort level (finance, health) in which we live beyond simple existence. Then, at a higher or psychological level, we have a need to have a sense of belonging, we also aspire to have a sense of self esteem within our selves and then Maslow argues we have a goal which is to achieve, to realise our potential. What this means to us when we are selling is that we need to understand our customer’s needs and we should understand which element of our prospect’s needs we are addressing. However be aware that Maslow’s hierarchical needs aren’t set categories with boundaries and we will all have complexity in our needs. So for example when buying food it is of course a basic need to survive, however we might also be buying to share with a loved one (the chocolates at the till!) and achieve a sense of self esteem. It is however essential to any sales person to understand which ‘need’ you are trying to satisfy.

Lots of sales manuals turn hierarchical needs into buying reasons, producing lists of what motivates us to buy. The key one is pain relief, but it also includes behaviours like opportunity, vanity, fashion, status, charity, simplification, love, security and enjoyment amongst others. It is of course possible to map these buying reasons into Maslow’s needs and it’s a good exercise to do so when planning a sales strategy for your own goods and services. A great way to summarise why both people and businesses buy is that they do so to either solve a problem or create an opportunity.

The art of selling is to ensure you know why your customer is buying as it will dictate your sales tactics; sadly it isn’t wise to sell a holiday package as a second honeymoon to someone going through a divorce. It might however be possible to sell the same package as a get away from it all week long break! Identifying your prospects pain or the opportunity they wish to take is therefore critical in your sales process. It is an art to determine why people buy because it involves listening and questioning and skilfully getting to the heart of their challenge. The key to getting your prospects to buy from their subconscious is to ensure you are meeting their inner needs.

Emotional needs

I’m a great believer in consultative selling and working with the prospective customer to tease out their needs and then as part of the consultation sell the benefits of the product I was promoting, focused on easing their pain or providing opportunity. However a few years ago I realised I wasn’t selling to my potential, I was closing and meeting my targets and the boss was happy – however too many opportunities were slipping through my fingers. I then met a small business owner who ran a great business and was interested in an online ecommerce solution I was selling. However I couldn’t close the deal and with lunch time approaching suggested a pub lunch before I left, disappointed, to write up yet another revised quote. At lunch we saw a news clip on Jenson Button and his playboy lifestyle and to my amazement this started a stream of stories on the owner’s son, an aspiring formula 1 driver.

The light went on! I realised that the pain that the owner had was not a lack of internet based sales but the cost of getting his son into formula 1 racing. His business pain was lack of sales, but his emotional need was financing his son. What I had to do was relate my software benefits in terms of the pain of financing an aspiring formula 1 driver. I had to tease out these costs and the other implications and equate the growth of sales using my software to these. The rest they say is history. So if you are selling, an absolutely essential requirement is to understand the emotional need of your customer and in a later paper you’ll discover how to use it to close more often.

Yes we are all hard wired to respond in fixed ways to the buying opportunities we see in front of us. We will buy because we are conditioned to satisfy our needs, both our business needs and most importantly our subconscious needs, a great salesman recognises both of these and responds accordingly.

To read the whole paper simply register at www.paralanding.co.uk or contact Chris Wright on 01442 269868.