Here is why people buy.
Let’s talk about why people buy. People buy for convenience. People buy for status. People buy because others have bought and vetted it. People buy to solve a problem. People buy because it makes them feel good. People buy to make things better, to feel better. People buy to keep up.
These are all buying motives. And like Jeffrey Gitomer recommends, they ought to be studied and thought of often because these are what drive sales. And then acted upon in your sales and marketing strategies. If people aren’t buying from you, it is likely because your product or service does not address any of these buying motives. People need a reason — their reason — to buy. It is up to you to find theirs and put it in front of them. What motivated them to act in the past? What have other people, other audiences like them, bought in the past? What is the competition doing in their marketing to address these points? How aggressive are they in their messaging? These buying motives are 10x more powerful than your pitch. This is why you need to focus on them. That, and the competition is not focusing on them, which gives you the edge.
The tricky part about these buying motives is that they are unconscious. People do not know that these are the motivations behind their actions. Nor are they likely to admit to buying something due to enhancing their own status. So, you have to sleuth, investigate, ask around, work around it through questioning. What they have already bought will be a great indicator for you. Look at the brands they buy, they wear, they drive, where they eat. These are all status symbols whether we admit it or not. These are the tribes to which we desire to belong. This is significant because you want your customer in your tribe and to stay a paying member of your tribe.
These buying motives work on all of us. We’ve all got our reasons for buying. It is the job of the sales pro to uncover these reasons and then sell specifically to them. Frank Kern has a great term for his marketing strategy to uncover buying motives, Behavior Dynamic Marketing. What this does is triggers automated messaging to prospects based upon how people have behaved in previous messages. It’s all ready-made, ready to deploy, and all based on how people behave in the marketplace. This way, the prospect only gets messaging they feel that is relevant to them. This is much more preferable to the prospect because it is 100% relevant to them. And clearly much more preferable to the marketer because they’re only putting marketing materials in front of prospects who want them and may act upon them. It also makes for higher sales because prospects are only seeing messaging relevant to them, training relevant to them, and offers relevant to them.
