Understanding Why People Buy
Hey guys, so last blog I talked to you about how to sell anything to anyone, But I should’ve explained to you why people buy in the first place. Understanding this will help you so much whether you’re on a sales call, writing copy for your website or writing emails. When you understand why people buy then everything you do will be geared towards that information and you will see your sales skyrocket. This stuff here is magic so you should be paying attention. Let’s get into it!
Selling Is Not Bad
Now let's just talk about this first. Selling is not a bad thing, okay? I want you to be to be sure about that. Everything is basically selling. If I want to see a certain movie with my wife, I may tell her the movie is really good and that it’s highly rated. I’d tell her that she’s probably like it. All I am doing by telling her this stuff is that I am selling her on the idea of seeing that specific movie because that’s what I want to see. Selling has a negative connotation but it’s really not a bad thing.
Okay so now that we’ve cleared it up here are the three reasons that people buy:
People Buy People
Selling is truly about understanding people. The first thing that you need to know is that people buy people. Unless your product is freaking phenomenal. For example, if you walk into the Apple Store and you really wanted Apple watch and the guy selling it to you was just so rude you are probably still going to buy the watch anyways. Because, for the most part, you know about apple. But generally speaking, people buy people.
This means that people will only buy from those they like, know, and trust. And so everything that you create whether it’s a sales page or a webinar has to help people get to know you. You have to let your personality shine through, and you have to get then to trust you and know you.
Think about this:
Have you ever gone into a store before with the intention of buying something. But then the salesperson just turned you off so much that you ended up not buying? I know that’s happened to me before for sure.
So, again, people buy people and that's one of the things that I want you to understand. Before you can sell, you must have that solid foundation of knowing why people buy. You need to know this because you're asking somebody to buy your product. And if you are going to have somebody buy your product then you better know why people buy.
Pain Vs. Pleasure
Now the second reason that people buy is the pain vs. pleasure principle. The question is “If I don't buy, will I be better than I am now? If I don't buy, will I have more pain than what I have now? If I don't buy will I have more pleasure.”
That is the psychological motivation of what triggers somebody to buy. It's often short-term gain. So, if someone wants to buy some ice cream that’s short-term, but it's going to bring them immediate pleasure. But people also buy for long-term gain and to alleviate pain. Think about someone who wants to lose weight, that would be long-term.
Say someone is 50 lbs overweight at some point that will become so painful for them that not doing something will be more painful than doing something. Say they first gain 10 lbs, that’s not too painful. They are still not going to workout or diet, so they are not going to join the gym. Then it becomes 20lbs, then 30lbs, then 40lbs, but somewhere along the line, whether it's 40 lbs or 100 lbs there's going to be a trigger. That trigger in their brain is going to tell them that they need to do something because not doing something is more painful than doing something. That's when they'll decide to join the gym or buy an online course or start taking supplements or stop eating bad food. The pain that they are experiencing is greater than the pain of buying or making a decision. Making the decision to do something will cause them less pain and therefore they will start doing something. Doesn't that make sense? It makes total sense.
People have the pain versus pleasure conversation always going on in their head. People have this conversation about many things. But this conversation is one of the reasons that people really buy anything. They buy to either gain pleasure or alleviate pain or both.
Needs Vs. Wants
The third reason why people buy is wants. People rarely ever buy because they need something, they buy because they want it. So again, emotion triggers most buying decisions. Look around your house, everything you have bought was bought because of a want and not really a need. But people will always try to justify their purchases. For example, my wife loves buying expensive shoes, but she will try and justify buying a $2,500 pair of shoes as if there is any real logical reasoning behind spending so much on a clothing item. She’ll say they are great quality, they’re comfortable, they will last years and years to come. But really, she only bought them because they make her look good which makes her feel good. That’s the same with most other things that she or anyone out there buys. We buy based on emotion.
So, emotion is the biggest reason why people buy. Someone trusting you enough to buy from you is emotional, people buying to alleviate pain or gain pleasure is emotional and people buying because of wants in emotional. To sell to people, you have to play on those emotional triggers, if you can’t then you will never sell anything. I cover this in greater detail in my sales closing course. Check out the course if you want to become a pro salesperson so you can make tons of money.