“Increase Your Profits by Knowing Why Your Customer’s Buy”
Colin Thompson
Managing Partner Cavendish/Author/International Speaker/Mentor/Partner
Whenever you go into a shop or pick up the phone to place an order, something has prompted you to take action and buy. Have you ever stopped to consider what that prompt was? What thought went through your mind, which led to you putting your hand in your purse or wallet?
It’s all down to motivation – what motivates you to buy. Understanding your motivation and that of your customer’s will help increase sales and profits! So, let’s spend some time examining what motivates people to buy and how you can apply this knowledge to help make your business more successful.
Motivation – 3 basic drivers
Any purchase boils down to satisfying a need, want or desire. These are 3 distinct stages. You usually have to satisfy your needs before you can progress up to wants and desires. Let’s have a look at each of them in turn.
?Needs
?Abraham Maslow, in his work on needs, highlighted that at the basic level, before we can consider ‘bettering’ ourselves, we have a set of requirements that are essential to survival. The most basic of these needs include food, water, heat and shelter. This is mass-market appeal, from the big supermarkets down to your local corner shop. Sell into the ‘needs’ category and you are looking at high volume low margin. Other than the odd special promotion, you rarely see the local shop advertising; they know that they will always get a core trade because they are satisfying needs (a bottle of milk at 9 o’clock at night!).
Unless you have a huge market penetration, you will never make a fortune. Find another market if you want a high-living lifestyle!
Wants
You’re getting warmer now! You are getting into the realms of people who have satisfied their basic requirements and can afford to step up the ladder to satisfy their wants. These are ‘nice-to-have’ items – not essential but they make life comfortable. A car, a TV, a CD/DVD player – generally a decent standard of living. To capture the market of satisfying people’s wants you will have to work a bit harder on two fronts.
Firstly, the customer can take it or leave it. He may not really need it at the end of the day, so you have to clearly highlight the benefits. Secondly, there is always someone else offering the same product. In this day and age you could argue that wants, too many people, have become needs, so there is an element of mass-market selling in this sector. You are up against many other businesses offering your product; you have to advertise, make people chose you over your competition.
You will make a decent living and create a decent business. But as a reader of Small Business Success, you should want more than this! To achieve greater success, you have to find a product that satisfies desires!
Desires
?Desires spring from emotions. Big, profitable sales are achieved on the back of emotions. Why? Because if someone has a burning desire to satisfy, then logic more or less flies out of the window! Someone buying on emotion will pay a high price – excellent profit for you.
?If you are in the business of satisfying desires then you are probably selling niche products or services, something, which doesn’t have mass-market appeal. You are focused on people who are happy to pay a premium to get what they want. A businessman’s heaven!
?Understand the real motivator
Having identified the 3 buying motivators, the next step to sell effectively to these groups is to see what the underlying need, want or desire is. Getting an idea of what drives your customer to buy means you can tailor your sales message accordingly.
?The need motivators
To eat and drink – to stay alive!
To stay warm
To have shelter
To be healthy and clean
To avoid pain
To ensure general security and protection
The want motivators
To be sociably acceptable – “everyone has one”
To look and feel good – sex appeal!
To save time or money
To improve general comfort levels
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The desire motivators
Although some of these can be similar to the want motivators, desire motivators are more driven by emotion and so the need to achieve is more passionate – money is almost no object.
Sex appeal
To improve social standing – not just keeping up with the Joneses but to be better
To demonstrate love
To gain prestige or to impress
To be popular
Regaining a forgotten youth
You can see by comparing the various motivators that selling to the desire group can be easier and more profitable. They have more money and so you don’t have to try hard to sell your product. All you have to do is uncover which motivator is pressing them to consider purchasing and exploit it! There’s nothing better than being in a niche market.
Steps to take
Here are the steps you can take:
Identify which of the motivators you are out to satisfy – needs, wants or desires
Speak to your customers and find out which of the specific motivators is driving them to buy
Tailor your sales and advertising pitch to match
Spend some time thinking and studying this and you will be richly rewarded.
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