Randy S. Hall

Why We Buy

Understanding why people buy the things they buy will only help you sell your product or service better. People buy for a reason. People buy with their emotions and justify their purchase with logic. People buy what the want because it fulfills a desire or it makes them feel better. If they perceive it will save them time or money or make them money they will buy. Whatever the reason find it and use it to compel them to buy.

We all like to buy things, but we hate being sold. I have seen it many times in my more than 20 years of selling retail and when I was working as an advertising sales rep. I have worked with all types of sales people, some good, some bad. The good ones always had several things in common like never hearing the word “no”, overcoming objections and knowing how and when to close.

One other trait they shared was gaining trust by not pressuring people or pushing off products the customer didn’t want. They understand that to be successful selling, let the customer sell themselves. Sure you can gently lead them in a direction they want to go or if they ask for helpful advice.

With this in mind you need to understand that people buy for many different reasons. The great part of it is that you can supplant the reasons if you understand the psychology of selling.

First, why do people buy? Here there are 4 basic categories; needs, wants, desires and fear. We all buy clothes because we need them to live in our society and to survive the elements. Yet we buy clothes we want for a variety of reason – fashion, comfort, style and warmth. So, for the most part we buy the clothes we want and justify it with need. This is very common and not in just clothes. This rule applies to everything.

Now, that we’ve established the ground rules we can move on to what’s important, how to use this information to sell. Knowing why people buy can only help you sell. Another important point, as long as we’re on the subject, people love stories. Even during a depression or a recession book sales and movie revenues prove this.

Fear of loss is the number one reason people buy. That is why limited quantity or time sales, sell items. If they believe they are getting a deal, but only if they buy it now then they will buy. Clearance is another great example of this very simple phenomenon. Online merchants and department stores use this ploy all the time. This creates a since of urgency.

Desire is easy to understand. For some reason the person desires an object. It could be that their neighbor has one or it fits some persona they wish to project. They desire an object to open doors or to close doors or to impress someone of the opposite sex and the list goes on. The bottom line here is they want it to fulfill a dream and that’s the difference between wanting something and desiring something. It’s merely a stronger, more emotionally charged situation and this can be used to your advantage.

How are you going to use this information to sell your product or service? Well, if you know why they buy, then doesn’t if follow that you will know how to sell it to them. All you really need to do is decide which of the four reasons they are using to buy or more precisely which ploy you are going use to sell.

Use your wits and do some research to decide who you are selling to and then plan your strategy from there. Your basic options are to create urgency or develop their desire with a story or promise to save them time and/or money or build its perceived value so that they can’t live without it. Of course, you could use a combination of two or more of these things.

When you know why they buy you will know how to sell it to them. I believe I've given you a very good start on understanding this whole process, but if you'd like more information I've written an ebook called "Why We Buy What We Buy" that I have for sale on my website. You can go right to the sales page if you like by following the link http://www.citylightsmarketing.com/whywebuy.html

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR