Why Easy Deals Feel So Hard To Close

Why don’t men ask for directions? It’s a common joke, but it’s also a good question, and can provide some interesting insight into human decision making and buying decisions.

Of course, society is changing, and the ‘direction asking’ scenario arises much less often than it used to, especially with the advent of GPS in cars. However, I am guilty of this obtuse display of intellectual bravado, and we all have seen men, and yes, sometimes women, dispute the GPS system and go at it alone, against the better advise of the all knowing, slightly robotic voice calmly explaining the best route. Of course, we can’t live in alternate universes, so one who makes this decision is very rarely definitively proven right or wrong, but we can be relatively certain, on the whole, that the GPS system knows best…except, of course, in your case; that darn GPS just does not know all the tricks that you do.

Why does this happen? What is the incentive? Of course the person driving wants to get to the destination as soon as possible, and avoid traffic, there is no doubt about that. Any objective evaluation of the situation would tell you that a computer with millions of inputs and a satellite view of the whole route in front of you, has better information than you do with your limited information and 500 feet of viewable route.

So, the driver has a problem, and there is a clear solution. The problem is that the driver does not know the fastest route to the destination because of lack of information, and the solution is that the GPS does know the fastest route. So why are these drivers not buying the solution. After all, the cost is very low, basically free, and the resource cost is also low, the only incremental resource investment from the driver is listening to the calm robotic voice explaining the best route, right?

Seems simple. I have a problem; here is an easy solution at a low cost. Done deal.

But there is another step, and it is a crucial step, a step that almost every seller, even the best ones, don’t spend enough time and attention on. It is the step where the buyer’s perception of value is matched up with their perception of cost. Notice, I used the word perception because the actual cost and value have no bearing on the outcome, only the buyer’s perception of the two. If we take some time to evaluate those two things, we may find a very different way of communicating with the buyer.

So, we ask ourselves, how does the buyer perceive cost, in addition to the obvious. There may be a perception that their authority, or knowledge or power, or value to the group, will be called into question if they have to rely on a calm and all-knowing robot to guide them through life. On the other hand, there may be a perception that if they offer a differing opinion than that all-knowing robot, and are proven right, they will experience the vindication and triumph of a king returning from a victorious battle. This is a value associated with a decision not to buy that we would have never detected without this analysis.

There is also likely a significant perceived cost associated with change in habit and routine. As humans, we are creatures of habit and we invest considerable energy into feeling comfortable with the routines that we set up for ourselves. Even something as seemingly innocuous as a new source of information is a significant change in habit and can cause discomfort with the potential new routine, as well as discomfort with the loss of the old routine; the status quo that we are invested in. This is a significant cost that would not have been uncovered without this analysis.

So how does this analysis help us sell? In this scenario, if the buyer were reminded that the likelihood of triumphant vindication over the robot is incredibly unlikely, and that the most likely alternative is inconclusiveness, or worse, a scenario where members of the group question the driver’s ‘clearly superior’ directional knowledge, the buyer may be helped to remember that the downside of disagreeing with the all-knowing robot may come with some shame and embarrassment, and that this scenario is more likely than the upside. In addition, conversations around how to build simple and satisfying routines and habits around the new solution might be a focus.

Notice, nowhere in the paragraph above were the benefits of the solution, or its low costs mentioned. We aren’t concerned with the solution, or even the problem. We are concerned with the buyer’s mental model of the world and how we can change that in a way that makes sense for the buyer, for us, and for the deal. This is a more nuanced understanding of the buyer’s decision making process that focuses itself on the things that the buyer rarely says out loud, but the very things that often get in the way of a deal.