the-psychology-of-your-buyer

I’ve always been, to some degree, out of sync with the mainstream culture. Being out-of-step felt like a good thing, like an important distinction that comes with following Christ.

Take for example the Black Friday mania and me being out-of-loop signaled another way the dominant culture has moved away from Christian principles.

The retail, materialistic culture has taken an even deeper hold over the hearts of Americans. And, as good entrepreneurs, if you can’t beat them, it’s time to join them!

People are buying! People are opening their checkbooks and swiping their credit cards! Don’t believe them when they say they can’t afford it.

If people are not purchasing your goods and services, it may be because that you don’t understand the psychology of your buyer and haven’t ordered your business model around it. That could be a fatal flaw, so heed these 5 insights into why people buy:

1. Having High Perceived Value

If prospective clients tell you your products or services sound “nice” or “good,” their vanilla vocabulary clues you in that what you are offering has a poor perceived value to them. To get people to part with their hard-earned cash and buy from you rather than take advantage of some Black Friday deal, they have to be salivating by the end of their conversation with you, dying to enroll in your program or dive into your home study kit or purchase your nail products. Their skin has to crawl and their armpit sweat needs to be staining their white shirts thinking about the possible negative effects of not doing business with you. If that’s not happening, you have a hole in your “perceived value” boat that you need to shore up.

2. Solving Their Problem (Not What You Think Their Problem Is)

What you are peddling must clearly solve your prospect’s real problem, not what you think their problem is. Even the decision to purchase a $5 sympathy card is rooted in solving a problem: the awkwardness of knowing how to acknowledge the death of a loved one but still wanting to show support. If you think your prospects have a confidence, mindset, branding, target market, or even spiritual misalignment problem but they think they just don’t have sales skills, your marketing message and materials need to be geared to improving sales skills. Once your customers have put their trust in you with their pocketbooks, you are in the right position to help them correct the root problem. Don’t lead with it if it doesn’t consciously resonate with the client.

3. Communicating Clearly-Stated Results

The more concrete your stated results, the easier it is for your prospect’s brain to calculate whether it is or is not something that is consistent with his or her goals. For example, if you are a marketing coach and you claim with your system your client can gain four new high-end clients each month, the prospect can easily calculate the economic value of that compared to the investment they will be making. Or if you work in the area of weight loss and can make the claim that 80% of your clients lost 10 pounds in the first 60 days and kept them off, prospective buyers can compare that to their own track record using other weight loss means. You can predict whether they will buy depending on how badly they want to lose weight and how confident they are that they will be in the 80% group, assuming they trust in you and your promises.

4. Talking with the Right People

Even if you master all of the above, you will only get the sale if you are talking with the right people. Even if your product or service is a great fit, if the people you approach are not in the mindset of investing in themselves, don’t have a big enough operation to afford you and your services, or aren’t committed enough to themselves and their businesses, they aren’t in a psychological place to buy. It’s important to make your best educated guess about who your ideal client is. But be open to refining this avatar as you encounter success and resistance in the field. When you encounter someone who is a perfect fit and invests accordingly, go deeper into to who they are and why they chose to buy and look for their clones on and offline.

5. Going Where Your Tribe Hangs Out

If you are unclear about who the “right people” are, it’s very difficult to find them and go to them. Even when you know who they are, it’s not always that easy to locate them. Investing your time in getting this piece right will save you a lot of time and money as you grow your business.

It’s great to be anchored to Christ and not overly focused on the material world. But to be successful and getting customers who buy, you have to spend a little time learning about what helps them make money and purchase decision.

The Catholic women entrepreneur biz and life tip: The most successful salespeople know how to get out of their own minds and into the minds of their customers. Start having that kind of symbiotic relationship with your key prospects. 

Copyright 2016 Christina M. Weber
Photo: Deposit photos. Licensed by author.