The 5 Buying Decisions Customers Make (And How to Guide Them)
Every customer makes the same five decisions before they ever say yes to buying a product or service. Unfortunately, most salespeople only focus on one or two of these decisions which is exactly why deals stall, objections rise, and opportunities slip away. They also only focus on the ones that are comfortable, product and price. Far too often they also jump into these two decisions before the conversation has had a chance to start.
Let’s discuss the five buying decisions that we need to work through with the customer if we are going to make the sale consistently.
The Salesperson
Before the customer evaluates our product or service we have to offer, they evaluate us. The customer is trying to validate if we are someone they can trust, or if we are trying to just push them into something that won’t help them resulting in another round of trying to figure out how to move forward. If they don’t trust us, then the some questions they soon have are, what is the price? How can I get out of this relationship? Where is the escape hatch?The Organization
Especially now more than ever is that customers actually want to know what the organization is doing for society. Can they trust the leadership of the organization to support customers at an ethical manner? Far too often we see headlines with leadership teams, CEO’s, coaches, etc handling their organizations in a poor manner. Gen Z and Millenials really are trying to make an impact in the world and they want to partner with organizations that will either give back to support communities or provide resources for them to support communities.
The organization is an important decision on who customers will partner with.
The Product or Solution
“Is this the right solution to solve my problem?” That is a question that I often hear from customers and most sales people can’t answer it. The sales person will answer with well we have this feature and this benefit, how does that sound. The customer is then thinking how is this feature and benefit going to to solve this problem? They may not say it out loud, but this is what they are thinking. But….When the solution is positioned as the natural answer, the buyer feels momentum , not pressure. This means that the sales person needs to provide the solution, not features and benefits.The Price
The customer after making the decision to keep moving forward with the salesperson wants to know if the value matches the perceived investment? Is this solution to my problem matching the value that I have placed on my problem? Maybe it’s time, maybe is monetary, maybe its health, but maybe it is stress level? They are hoping the salesperson is going to help them with this decision.
Unfortunately, the sales person presents the price and then the wheels come off of the presentation…. The sales person begins get nervous and devalues the solution which essentially causes the customer to not see the true value. To present the value, the sales person needs to know and feel the value of their proposal and be confident.
This is a make or brake point of the process.
Time to Buy
So now we have made it to the final buying decision. If we have performed well in the process it is time for the customer to accept and sign the agreement to schedule the delivery of the solution.Sales people have provided what they believe to be the value and this is at some times where the customer says something along the lines of, “great I will keep this in mind for the future.” Leaving the sales person shocked at how this could have happened. It's unfortunately because this customer was not validated early on which is a huge miss. If done correctly the customer will sign be thankful and ready to move forward which is the ultimate goal to move forward with the customer to find other opportunities with this relationship.
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