Why People Don't Buy

[tconnor]

Sales Tips #260
Why People Don't Buy

Prospects and customers don't buy for hundreds of individual reasons, but most of them will tend to fall within the following.
People don't buy because:

• There is no sense of urgency on their par.
• They fear making a buying mistake.
• They lack adequate understanding of what the product or service will do for them.
• There is just a lack of overall perceived value.
• They don't trust or believe you.
• They lack confidence in the company.
• Of bad timing. Just signed a 3 year contract with your competitor yesterday.
• It’s just too new or complicated for them.
• There is the potential of too much discomfort - having to change a way of doing things.
• They don’t have the money.They are completely 100% satisfied with their current supplier.
• They don’t need or want what you are selling.

People buy for their individual and personal reasons, not for the reasons the salesperson or the organization’s marketing department think they should. I see this every day in the corporate development of sales strategies and approaches. The company feels like a new product has the ten great features or reasons why a prospect will want to buy this new version, release, model - whatever . The salespeople memorize these ten features and their order of importance and then proceed to deliver the “corporate message” for this new product – the ten features to their prospects and customers. When is marketing and sales management going to get it! People don’t buy your products or services for the reasons you think they should or why other prospect’s do. They buy for their own reasons.

You cannot turn a poor prospect into a customer with a great product or persuasive sales appeal. The key to increasing sales is to identify why people buy and what prevents them from not buying.
Here are some other common reasons people don’t buy:

1. They can’t afford what they want.
2. They don’t really know what they want.
3. They have had a poor history with salespeople or organizations in general.
4. They don’t want it.
5. They are concerned with what others will think of their purchase.
6. They don’t like it.
7. They are indecisive buyers.

When a prospect doesn’t buy, I suggest that you do everything possible to determine what prevented the purchase – especially if this was a well-qualified prospect. This can be done with an after-sales call visit, telephone call, letter, or fax. Once you learn why many of your prospects are not buying, then, and only then, can you in the future disarm these resistance areas during the sales process before they become deal breakers.

Most poor salespeople give more information than they get. They TALK TOO MUCH. You learn nothing while you are talking. You can learn a great deal if you can get the prospect talking and keep them talking. After every failed sales attempt, make it a regular practice to ask the prospect something like, “What was it about our product, service or my presentation that prevented you from making a favorable decision now?”

You will learn a great deal which can have a tremendous positive impact on future sales results if you will consistently determine why people don’t buy from you and/or your organization.

[fred333]

Very nice post. Really liked it.

[jonarmis]

Well, come to think of it, some people will not really buy from you if your product fails to cater to their needs. If a product is able to meet the customer need, then by all means, they will buy it. Anything of value is worth buying.