The Hidden Rules of Engagement: Why Your Clients Aren’t Buying What You Think You’re Selling

Imagine you're running a café. Two customers walk in. The first asks for a black coffee and grabs it to go. The second lounges in, orders a latte, and stays for 30 minutes, enjoying the atmosphere. They both leave with a coffee, but are they both there for the same reason? Of course not. The first was buying efficiency, the second was buying experience. The coffee? Well, that was incidental.

Now, apply that same thinking to your clients – both B2B and B2C. Are you really selling what you think you’re selling?

Here’s the thing about business engagements: they operate under hidden, unspoken rules of human behaviour. We assume clients make decisions based on rational arguments — price, quality, efficiency. But scratch beneath the surface, and you'll find that often it's these invisible factors, the unquantifiables, that tip the scales.

Take B2B, for instance. It’s easy to assume the buyer is driven by logic: return on investment, measurable outcomes. But think about it. How much of that decision-making process is shaped by emotion? By reassurance, by trust, or even by fear of making a bad choice and having to explain it in a board meeting? It’s risk aversion wrapped in the guise of rationality.

And for B2C, the gap between what we think we're buying and what we’re really buying is often even wider. People don’t just want products – they want a feeling, an identity, or even just the illusion of control. Who buys an expensive watch just to know the time? No, they buy into a status, a story, and a sense of belonging.

So, here’s the provocative bit: Have you ever stopped to question if the value you’re offering is the same value your clients are actually seeking? More importantly, are you focusing on what’s measurable – or what’s meaningful?

How do you make your service or product feel like the 'safe' choice, not just the 'best' one? How do you tap into these invisible drivers – trust, identity, belonging – to make clients want to engage with you, rather than merely need to?

Perhaps the future of engagement lies less in what we say and more in what we suggest. A well-placed nudge, the power of context, and a deep understanding of human quirks – these are often more influential than a perfectly crafted sales pitch.

Here’s a final thought: We all spend a lot of time trying to get inside our customers' heads, but maybe the real magic happens when we let them stay inside their own heads — and simply provide the right cues to make them think they're making the smart choice all on their own.

So, are you selling coffee? Or are you selling the space to savour it?

I’ll leave you with this: What small changes could you make in your client engagement today that would tap into these hidden behavioural triggers?

www.cogentexecutive.com