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Why do people buy what they buy and why do they buy at a particular time? There are motives that either singularly or together cause the prospect to buy your service or product.
You must keep in mind that people buy for their own reasons, not because of your or your company's reasons. Their reasons may not be reasonable, intelligent or even practical, but they are their reasons. It's important to understand the rationale behind each one, as you are likely to encounter them in the course of the sale.
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People have six motives for buying any product or service: desire for gain; fear of loss; comfort and convenience; security and protection; pride of ownership; and satisfaction of emotion.
These six buying motives are not presented in any special order. No one is more important than another, but at least one of these motives - and often more than one - applies to every purchase, every time.
1. Desire for gain. This is a relatively simple one. A prospect purchases your product or service expecting some financial gain from it. In accounting software, it could mean that the buyer expects to increase productivity and thereby improve profits.
Desire for gain may have motivated you to read this article. You may expect to increase your selling skills, which will help you make more money.
2. Fear of loss. This motive refers to the fear of financial loss if the product or service is not acquired. The Y2k problem is an example of people buying new software out of fear of the loss that they will suffer without it on Jan. 1, 2000.
Other examples of fear-motivated technology buying include investing in reporting features used to detect expense overruns, technological warning systems to make payroll tax payments, or installing an EDI system out of fear that you will lose an important account if you don't have it.
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3. Comfort and convenience. In our profession, examples of comfort and convenience include report format options that examine performance by product line, service type, location or season with the click of a mouse, or automatic integration between accounting data and spreadsheet and word processing programs. For not-for-profit organizations, it may mean investing in fund accounting software that more easily meets government and fund source reporting requirements.
4. Security and protection. People make innumerable purchases motivated by the desire to avoid physical harm to themselves, their loved ones or their property. Witness the sales of mace, car alarms and private security companies, or look at the growing market for vitamins and health clubs.
To those for whom security and protection are important motives, computer system features such as passwords, automatic backup of data, task menus, virus detection and automatic log-off are appealing.
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5. Pride of ownership. Why do people buy brand-name luxury cars and companies spend lavishly on landscaping or state-of-the art computer systems? Why do stamp collectors spend thousands of a dollars for a single stamp?
There is a bit of "label mentality" in most of us. Most will pay a premium for an exclusive item just for the feeling of pride that one derives from owning it.
In accounting software sales, this means a willingness to pay more to purchase the fastest product, or from the largest publisher, or the most successful local reseller or the CPA with the strongest reputation.
Even smaller companies can become enamored with a more expensive technology solution than they really need. For a generation of computer buyers, the IBM label brought a premium price and appealed to the pride of ownership buying motive.
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6. Satisfaction of emotion. Why send a dozen long-stemmed roses to a loved one? Often, it is to make that person happy. How about when you pick up the tab for lunch?
These kinds of purchases make us feel good because we gain love and appreciation from them. We all want to avoid disapproval and rejection. These are emotions associated with love and ego. We all want to impress and look good and try to avoid looking bad - literally and figuratively.
Every one of these buying motives are emotional, not logical. This point cannot be emphasized strongly enough. People buy emotionally, not logically; to sell effectively, you must fix the idea in your mind that everybody buys for emotional reasons.
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You may find some people aware of their underlying emotional motivations, but only vaguely. The underlying buying motives affect personal purchases as well as company purchases, since it is a human being that makes the decision to buy on behalf of a company.
Different people will have different motives for the same kind of purchase. For example: Three people entered a pet store, and each emerged a short time later with a German shepherd. The first person said, "I live alone, and I sometimes get lonely. I expect Max here will give me companionship, affection and love."
The second person explained, "The German Shepherd is a breed I have always admired for their intelligence. Besides, this young pup has an exceptionally fine pedigree. Would you like to see his papers?"
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The third cautiously stated, "There have been a lot of burglaries in our neighborhood recently and my wife and I are worried. Our new dog will serve to protect our apartment when we are both out."
The first person bought for affection and satisfaction of emotion. The second person's motive was pride of ownership, and the last person saw his dog as the answer to his fear of loss and/or security and protection motivations.
Consider how e-commerce appeals to several buying motives. The desire for gain is met by the ability to increase sales through the Internet channel without paying additional sales commissions. For fear of loss, there is a motivation to keep up with competitors who are adopting e-commerce.
Comfort and convenience comes with having customers enter their orders without re-keying by internal staff. For satisfaction of emotion, there is the knowledge that incoming orders are received 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, regardless of staff schedules.
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Satisfaction of emotion also appeals to peace of mind, meaning, for our profession, how the software solution helps the user feel a greater sense of achievement at their job. Or how software efficiency means more time for golfing, or skiing, or time with family and friends.
As you can see, there are different motives, but the same need. Keep in mind when you try to uncover your prospects' motives that more than one can apply to the same purchase.
Appealing to your prospect's buying motives is what selling is all about.
--By Roy E. Chitwood, President, Max Sacks International
Roy Chitwood is an author and consultant on sales and customer service. He is President of Max Sacks International, Seattle, (800) 488-4629, www.maxsacks.com. To subscribe to his free e-mail newsletter, Track Selling Times, e-mail info@maxsacks.com
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