Understanding how and why your clients buy

Succeeding as a leader in your industry means understanding what motivates your clients to buy.  The key to reaching and engaging clients is to understand the decision-making process behind their purchasing habits. 

Understanding customers have different motivators when making purchasing decisions is the first step. You’ll also need to take the way they buy into account when tailoring your approach. 

Selling to customers with different motivations

Let’s look at buying behaviour at the point of motivation, such as during a conversation with your potential buyer.   As with everything else, we all get motivated by different things.  Below, we use buying a car as an example. An effective sales methodology can be adopted by exploring the following motivations during a conversation with your potential customer:

Scenario 1: ‘Our car is old now and probably not safe.’

Strategy: This customer values safety, therefore highlighting safety features to illustrate that their new car will be more reliable will be helpful here. 

Scenario 2: ‘Our old car was good but not very efficient.’

Strategy: After identifying that efficiency is a motivator for their purchase, discuss how the new car will be more efficient.

Scenario 3: ‘Our current car is fine, but I love having the latest.’

Strategy: This type of customer is likely to be an early adopter and their motivation for purchasing a car could be to enhance their status.  Discuss the latest models and features to close your sale.

Customers respond positively when they believe salespeople understand them. Before rattling off features and benefits, remember that you must understand the customer’s need to buy.

Buying Strategy 

Some clients take longer to make a buying decision, while others are quick. This is often influenced by several factors, including (but not limited to):

  • How educated they are about the problem and corresponding solutions
  • How motivated they are to buy, i.e. what has to happen for them to want to purchase something.
  • If it is a priority for them right now
  • How they buy 

Someone, who seemingly wants your solution, may keep calling with questions. You’re wondering why they don’t just buy, so what’s going on?

  1. Their buying strategy may involve ringing to seek clarity by asking questions for months.

What to do: Be the expert, keep asking and answering their questions, be the trusted advisor. Do everything right. Have high awareness and adapt to them. 

What not to do: Do not move on price. 

  1. Their strategy for buying is to check out options before they need it (i.e., their current xyz will need replacing, updating or a total new solution). You might hold that new solution and they are checking out their options. 

What to do: Be the expert, keep asking questions, be the trusted advisor. 

What not to do: Do not move on price. 

People also buy in different ways – Some are more visual and need to see what you’re selling, they’re auditory, meaning they need to hear it, or they might be kinaesthetic, and need to feel it. 

For more examples about buying behaviour, access the ‘5 Insights into Buyer Behaviour’ ebook.

Conclusion

Sales mastery is about realising that we are all different and that we all operate differently.  Once you understand this, it’ll be much easier to persuade your clients to buy from you, instead of your competitors.

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What to do

Help your team by coaching them on how to understand the client

Learn more:

Read: Objections making you freeze?>>>

Read: Handling Objections part one>>>

Read: Handling Objections part two>>>

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Piece written by Charmaine Keegan,  author of over 20 eBooks, is a sought-after guest speaker, panellist, and keynote. She is a Certified Trainer Extended Disc System, of Situational Leadership, of NLP (how we operate), Hypnotherapy (unconscious communication) and Timeline Therapy (recognising your beliefs about sales and money – and recognising that of your customer). She has studied the psychology of human behaviour and is considered an absolute authority and true expert on sales techniques.

She has ‘walked the walk‘ so her content, programs and key notes are highly practical and focused on results.

Smarter Selling is sales and mindset coaching for high performing leaders and teams