The Sales Buddha

People Buy Emotionally and Justify Intellectually

People buy on emotion and justify their decisions intellectually. You might be thinking, “So what!” Well, this just might be important if you care about why people buy. Which might be important if you want to improve your sales skills and increase your sales. This fact is why some sales gurus talk about “finding their pain”. Moving away from pain, or towards pleasure, are both strong emotional motivators that can help you close a sale.

Here’s a quick example of what I’m talking about. A few years ago I was just looking around a sporting goods store and saw an Ambassador 5000 bait casting reel on sale. I really wanted it, so I bought it. That sale was based on pure emotion. I didn’t need it, I had two just like it already, but I wanted it. Need was not a factor. There are better reels out today that cost less, but I didn’t want them, I wanted this one and I bought it. Cost was not a factor. So I bought it and spent the thirty-minute drive back to the house trying to figure out how to justify the purchase to my wife. You see, people buy emotionally and justify it intellectually!

What was I going to tell her? I didn’t think, “I wanted it”, was really going to work. I could tell her what a great deal I got on it, but I already had two just like it. I could tell her that “my old reel won’t last much longer”, although at nearly thirty years old it worked like new. Maybe I could tell her, “I’ll be able to use the old one for parts”, but she had seen me fish with it two weeks earlier. Darn, I guess I’d just have to fess up and tell her I bought it because I wanted it.

I wanted it because it was just like the one my father had given me over three decades earlier. He let me have it after a fishing trip that just the two of us went on. When you’re one of five kids, time alone with your dad can be very special. And having that reel is an attachment to my dad, that trip and memories that are irreplaceable and priceless. That’s why I bought it. No justification needed, I just wanted it. I’d probably paid twice as much as they were asking. It was a sale made on pure emotion.

So next time you’re helping someone make a purchase, remember that people buy emotionally and justify it intellectually. If you ask them the right questions, you can find the emotion behind their action and maybe even help them figure out what to tell their spouse to explain their purchase!

Wants and Needs. I have them both.

In sales, as in much of life, what we do is greatly impacted by our wants and needs. If you want to be more successful, you should learn the difference between the two. They’re not really the same thing, but both work hand in hand in helping us make decisions. There’s a real simple definition for the two that works for me. Adults have needs and teenagers have wants. Simple. Adults need to make mortgage payments, pay for healthcare, car notes and necessities like food. Teenagers want to go to beach for spring break, want new shoes and clothes, want an I-Pod and things like that. They don’t have a real need, but want can be a strong emotion impacting their decisions. Not exactly accurate, but it’s pretty easy to remember.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is discussed in philosophy books and research as the levels of needs by all mankind in ascending order needed. It starts with physiological needs and moves up through security, social belonging, self-esteem and finally self-actualization. In most situations it is meeting these basic needs that makes someone a prospect in the sales process. They may walk into your business one-day looking to fill a need they have. If they have no needs, you’ll probably not make a sale. It always cracks me up when shoppers tell me they don’t need anything, they’re “just looking”. That’s baloney, if they didn’t need something, they wouldn’t be looking!

Finding out what they want is the surest way to advance to a sale. You determine the wants by peeling the onion, a term for peeling through outside layers to get to the heart of what’s really important. As an example, someone may come into your business needing a watch. Well, it’s obvious they need to know what time it is. But do they want a Timex or a Rolex. Both meet the need to know what time it is. But one will come much closer to the other than meeting what they want. They need to tell time, but they might want to show a little “bling-bling”’ or want a watch that they really feel good about wearing. Any watch will meet the need, but the right watch will meet their wants. Identifying and meeting both wants and needs is one sure way to keep your customers coming back.

If you want to know more about how to determine someone’s wants, I’ll bet you have a need to learn more about improving your sales. That need, makes you a prospect for me! That’s the best news I’ve heard all day!

My Pleasure

My wife and I just got back from a seven day Caribbean cruise, which was our first cruising experience. I had always heard that cruises were for “newlyweds and nearly deads”, and had avoided the watery adventure until last week. My friend, Steve Rice, the Cruise Butler had taken care of everything and all I had to do was to climb aboard and set sail. As we cleared security and prepared to board, I had a very strange thing happen. After I had thanked the officer inspecting my documents, he looked me right in the eye and said, “my pleasure”.

It was his pleasure to be courteous, professional, friendly and prompt. It was his pleasure to make sure that my experience was the best it could possibly be. It was his pleasure to put his own personal wants and needs on hold, right behind mine. It was his pleasure to see what he could do to make an unbelievable memory out of my cruise. I had to stop and think about it a while. I knew I had experienced this before, somewhere, sometime before. It had been awhile. And then it came back to me, oh yeah, that’s customer service!

Customer service is what some people do when they want you to come back and do business with them again. It all must have started somewhere in the South. It’s really nothing special, just being friendly and courteous. But the staff of the Rhapsody of the Sea has taken it to a new level for me. It seemed nearly every time I asked for anything, I was met with a “my pleasure”. It’s a mindset that had permeated the entire ship. It was their pleasure to make sure I felt like a King. And they treated every passenger that way. It was great; I loved every minute of it. We both loved it so much that we booked another cruise while we were still on-board the ship.

Could you just imagine what it would be like to shop in a store in town where your treatment and experience was their pleasure? Holy mackerel! That would surely float my boat!