Published August 2004

Find buying motive and you’ll find the sale

More sales are lost by “selling” than by any other sales error.

Sounds kind of weird, I know. But after reading this you’ll not only understand why, you’ll also begin to rethink and convert your selling ways.

Your selling skills are not nearly as powerful as the customer’s reasons for buying. In fact, your reasons for selling are useless if they don’t match the customer’s reasons for buying.

This reasoning is as powerful as it is overlooked.

Ask yourself this: “Why did my last 10 customers buy from me?” My bet is that you don’t know. Now, I’m talking about knowing the REAL motive, not the “surface” motive like price or friendship. If uncovering these motives is at the heart of your success, take a deeper look at what caused the purchase.

What are buying motives?

They are the REAL reasons for making a purchase.

Many times the salesperson (not you, of course) is fooled into believing that the surface issue is the real reason for the purchase. When a potential customer asks for “bids,” the salesperson thinks that “low price” is the motive — but nothing could be further from the truth.

Think about the way you buy. First, there’s a REASON; then you go shopping. Same with your customers. Price is simply a barrier to owning what you want or need.

AND, if you dig deeper into the buying motive, you will move higher in the decision-making chain (above purchasing and procurement). Cool, huh?

Now here’s the best part: It’s hard work. But this means you eliminate all the lazy salespeople from the race.

OK, let’s get down to the reasons — the motives — for buying. Take a look at the motives, and you’ll see that you need to delve deeper, especially if you want to make price less of a barrier. And remember, there may be several motives for the same purchase.

Let me give you some motives as food for thought. To make it easier, I have broken them down by motive category:

• Purchase-oriented motives: out of stock, need for production, need for manufacture, need for business operation or previous experience.
• Emotional-oriented motives: high desire, value of purchase, desire to gain, in a panic — timing, vanity or greed — ego gratification, or low risk or no risk.
• Experience-oriented motives: preconceived notion, previous experience, certain of performance, confidence in quality, confidence in service, brand loyalty, supplier loyalty or salesperson loyalty.
• Profit- or money-oriented motives: fear of loss — losing ground to competition, fear of loss — losing customers, fear of loss — losing revenues, better productivity or performance, work reduction or efficiency, increase profits, have the money or budget, best choice, best price or cheapest price (I put this here because price could be the real motive to buy, though it rarely is.).
• Results-oriented motives: increase customer loyalty, enhance brand value, better market image, improve the present product or gain a competitive advantage.

Which motives fit your customers?

Answer: Lots of them.

Answer: More than you know.

Answer: Uncovering them is the key to your sales.

Answer: Often it’s a combination of motives.

Are some motives more powerful than others? Heck, yeah! Fear of loss is greater than the desire to gain. You determine the value by the number of sales that result from each motive you uncover.

How do you expose these all-important motives? You start with the past. Look at past successes. Then add present loyal customers. Existing customers will help you understand the reasons they buy from you. Explore their history. Get their experience. Ask deep. Three or four consecutive “why questions” will get to the hidden motives. Ask them why that was important. Get their story on the long-term use of your product or service (even if it wasn’t purchased from you). Motive after motive will come forth.

Then explore the dark side. The real truth will come from lost customers. Why did they leave you? What motive wasn’t met? You may even renew a few relationships and regain some lost customers.

Here’s a motivating way to perceive this process: Don’t think of it as “motive.” Think of it as “money.” Find the motive means find the money — or at least the path that will lead you there.

Show me the motive — and I’ll show you the sale.

Jeffrey Gitomer, author of “The Sales Bible,” is now offering licensed training programs to corporations, as well as distributorships to individuals. He can be reached by phone at 704-333-1112 or e-mail to salesman@gitomer.com.

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