Five Buying Decisions

And

Six Possible Buying Motives

In the Sales Process

By Steve Fawthrop

Summarized From “World Class Selling” by Roy Chitwood

As sales professional we often focus on the selling process in order to track a commitment. Different labels are put on selling steps but generally they are seen as: approach, qualification/needs analysis, agreement on needs, solution response, objection response, agreement, negotiation and commitment.

What can be forgotten--and should not be--is that a prospect is also going through a buying process in step with your efforts to sell.

As a consultative salesperson you want to demonstrate how the investment in your product or service is of value to the needs of the business of the client, rather than a purchase from the lowest-cost provider.

The more you understand the dimensions of buying decisions and the possible motives behind them, the more value you will be able to demonstrate to the prospect.

Let me first address the buying decisions. Below I look at six possible buying motives.

What Your Prospects Don’t Tell You

We buy numerous things that are not sold to us. We buy on our own initiative to satisfy our need and we buy almost without thinking.

However, when something is being sold to us, we do think, and our prospects do the same notes sales consultant and trainer Roy Chitwood of Max Sacks International, and author of “World Class Selling.”

We have to first approach the prospect with the understanding that we are an unknown quantity and, therefore, there are going to be questions and natural doubts about the value of conducting business with us.

There are five buying decisions everyone makes when we are selling to them. These decisions always come into play even if the prospect is not fully conscious of them. Also, even if the buyer understands what elements are part of a decision, they are not always openly expressed.

By understanding the decisions they will make when dealing with you, the better off you are to get them to answer “yes” to each of the questions.

Roy also stresses that the buying decisions always occur when you are selling, and they occur in a precise, psychological order.

1) About you, the salesperson

2) About your company

3) About your product or service

4) About the price/value

5) About the time to buy

The first buying decision: About you, the salesperson

The prospect’s first impression is not the product or service you sell, but you.

The unspoken concerns revolve around:

1) Your integrity

2) Your judgment

When talking about your integrity they are judging if they feel you are really interested in their success. Do you understand the needs of their business?

Judgment is whether you understand and can show how what you offer matches to the true needs and desires of the client.

The more you understand your company, the market you serve, the market segment of the prospect and their potential customers and reflect that knowledge with credibility and confidence, the stronger position you are in to satisfy questions in the mind of the prospect.

The second buying decision: About your company

In addition to liking and trusting you, the client has to believe in the credibility of your company.

Much of this is established first by you. Still, the prospect wants to view the company as credible and trustworthy.

Their expectation may range from the level of assumed reliability (handle my order right) to trusted advisor as an integrated consultant that is a key part of their operations.

The third buying decision: About the product or service

The prospect is not simply deciding if they want to buy from you.

They want to decide, both emotionally and logically, “Does this product or service really meet my needs?”

I address buying motives below but the prospect is making a choice for you over two other options:

1) No action at all

2) Other alternatives

Other alternatives are not simply other companies that you would define as direct competitors The buyer may be comparing the investment in your product or service to whether they want to spend a like amount of money on an additional staff member or a different capital purchase.

When a purchase is made by a larger organization then the purchase is much more influenced by multiple people with different agendas and priorities beyond your main contact or the person you perceive as the "decision maker."

Regardless if selling to a company small or large, you have to provide a sufficient value to the customer’s business to be seen as a higher payoff than other choices.

The fourth buying decision: About the price/value

Now the client is ready to consider price, but he or she looks at “affordability” as the value that will be returned for the investment.

The more credibility you have established on the first three buying motives, the more the sale will be about value vs. lowest price. That is why it is imperative to avoid the “So what does it cost?” question until you have built as strong a foundation of value as possible.

The fifth buying decision: The time to buy

This is more client-controlled, but if you have a legitimate reason for sooner timing, then the prospect deserves to hear it from you.

There may be time sensitive aspects to your offer that necessitate a decision by the prospect. Examples: the end of an available tax credit that makes the purchase more cost effective, the end of an existing product line or a pending non-negotiable price increase.

The six buying motives

It can never be ignored that people buy for their own reasons, not ours.

Their reasons may not necessarily be sensible, intelligent or even rational from our perspective, but they are their reasons.

People have six motives for buying any product or service:

1) Desire for financial gain

2) Fear of financial loss

3) Comfort and convenience

4) Security and protection

5) Pride of ownership

6) Satisfaction of emotion

The five buying decisions came in a sequential, building order. The six buying motives, on the other hand, do not come in a particular order although most prospects, especially if you are in business to business sales, are clearly looking for spending to be an investment in new business and a financial gain. Certainly in advertising, my field, that is the case at the fundamental level.

However, it is important to keep in mind that the six buying motives are all founded in emotional decision. Often more than one motive exists, but at different levels of importance. Let me provide some examples.

Desire for gain

Most of our prospects are going to have this as their primary motive whether they measure the financial gain directly or indirectly.

If investing in advertising, as noted, then the expectation is to generate more prospects and, ultimately, profitable new customers.

If buying a new truck for a fleet a motive for gain may be the increased fuel efficiency of the truck to reduce operating costs, lower maintenance costs or improved hauling capacity that allows for greater productivity in use.

On a personal level an investment in real estate, mutual funds or other forms of direct payback for personal gain or business profit can be a dominant reason as a buying motive.

Fear of loss

While buying insurance is an obvious example of spending to avoid a loss, there are other examples.

In business, a prospect who feels they are losing market share or losing out on new opportunities may be motivated by a fear of loss. This can lead to spending to better compete. For example, a company may open a new distribution center or increase training for customer service or sales staff to defend market share.

Comfort and convenience

A few examples of personal comfort and convenience in business would be having a comfortable office chair or a reserved parking space by the front door of the office.

At an organizational level, the convenience of dealing with your company can be seen as having you being a responsive representative. As the prospect works with your company, though, the view can expand to include dealing with other parts of your company with whom the client interacts: delivery, billing, your assistant or any employee of the company.

Security and protection

Smoke alarms or a security fence are good examples of purchasing for security.

In business, keep in mind security in choosing the source of a purchase is important. There is an old noted saying in the technology field that no purchasing agent ever got fired for choosing to buy from IBM. Times, of course, have changed but you must be aware of brand preference as a form of safety.

Because of previous experience, recommendation by others or brand reputation, your product or service needs to, ideally, be established as the superior overall value for purchase.

At the least, as sales guru Brian Tracy notes in his training, you need to be viewed as the safest and best choice or the least risk decision. Using the Microsoft office suite might be viewed by some in this way. It represents the best overall choice of use and support vs. one particular application being uniquely better but not offering as much total value.

Fear of criticism by others for choosing your product or service can be seen as an unsafe choice. In the early years of USA Today, where I worked as part of my career, the company had to battle the “McPaper” tag that kept prospective advertisers from spending their marketing budgets with us.

We had to battle the perception that the content was not credible enough and, thus, not creating a quality readership. Even though research validated the demographic quality of readers, there was still an issue that greater editorial credibility was needed before certain clients would work with us or give us a greater share of their budgets. “Editorial quality” was a subjective, emotional evaluation.

It may not have seemed fair (or logical) from our perspective, but it was a reality to the prospect and their advertising agencies and had to be overcome. Fortunately that view became virtually non-existent and USA Today is now a well-established brand as a news and information source.

Pride of ownership

Why does someone purchase a nicer version of anything?

The pride factor may be overt or subtle. I had a former boss who was compelled to tell everyone about his Mercedes, Corvette and boat. He was a bit extreme but he got personal satisfaction in talking about his possessions.

For others pride may be very internal through a sense of accomplishment.

Satisfaction of emotion

This can be in many ways.

Using the example of advertising again, you may not naturally associate advertising with satisfaction of emotion. Still, many businesses see themselves as up-and-comers (Hyundai and Kia Motors), market leaders (General Electric) or innovators (Apple). Advertising reinforces their market position to the broader public.

Think about the premium paid by a company to be a sponsor for the Olympics or World Cup. The total value of association cannot be measured in just dollars and cents whether it on the global stage, or sponsoring a trade show or panel discussion through a business trade group.

Advertising is also used to support the morale of staff by validating the quality of their employer. This may be through promotion of good corporate citizenship for the environment, support of a particular cause like cancer research or sponsorship of a Little League team for a community business.

Remember, people buy emotionally not logically. In order to sell effectively, you must fix in your mind that everyone buys emotionally then rationalizes the purchase with logical reasons for their action.

An example of different buying motives

Suppose you are a contractor talking to a couple considering a kitchen remodel. Let’s look at how the different buying motives can influence a purchase.

One motive for the couple may be the value added to the home (desire for gain) or the potential loss of value for keeping an outdated kitchen when it comes time to sell (fear of loss).

A remodel may make the kitchen more functional (comfortable and convenient).

Updated wiring reduces fire risk or new plumbing will prevent future leaks (security and protection).

The homeowners can show off the new kitchen to friends at the end of the project (pride of ownership) and they can get the personal satisfaction of the beauty and style of the kitchen after the remodel (satisfaction of emotion).

Depending on individual preferences, owners may get more satisfaction from using recycled or renewable materials in the remodel.

Any one or any combination of the Six Buying Motives can come into play in this example. Ultimately you want to get to emotional motives, a rationalization of the purchase and then the positive emotion of goodwill after the sale to have a satisfied customer and, hopefully, a strong reference for other prospects.

Being more attuned to buyers decisions and motives for buying will lead to greater sales success.

Additional Resource

I have read numerous books related to sales, but let me recommend a few from Stephan Schiffman.

He has written numerous books related to sales but two in particular I like are:

“Getting to Closed” which is about effective territory management

“Ask Questions, Get Sales—Close the Deal and Create Long-Term Relationships”

http://www.steveschiffman.com/

About me

I have been a sales professional in advertising, marketing and media as a career. This has included managing my own territories, selling with others and managing sales teams. My background includes:

• Seven years in sales management including five years at the Puget Sound Business Journal in Seattle growing local sales to over $5 million annually (+70%). In Seattle I worked with an in-market staff, both outside and inside sales, and later, when in Orange County, dispersed reps.

• Joint selling with local reps in the U.S. with USA Today. I also worked with independent reps in Asia while maintaining individual revenue responsibility. All of the work in Asia was pioneering to break new markets with my dominant focus on Japan. During my tenure my national territory grew to nearly $7 million annual revenue.

• Have opened and grown individual sales territories for local, regional and national accounts. This included opening the Los Angeles office for the Network of City Business Journals, the national sales arm of American City Business Journals, the largest publisher of local business news.

I was born and raised in Seattle and graduated from the University of Washington with a B.A. in Communications in Advertising.

A good portion of my professional career was in California—19 years split between Los Angeles and Orange County. I returned to Seattle late 2012. Recent work includes moment M, a start up ad tech mobile advertising demand side buying platform (DSP: www.momentm.com

Contact information:

Steve Fawthrop 714-876-7062, cellstevefawthrop@outlook.comhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/stevefawthrop