Do Customers Buy for Emotional Reasons?
Every sales guru insists that customers buy for emotional rather than intellectual reasons. The following member of our community -- a real live B2b customer, no less -- begs to differ. In a comment to the post "A Reader Dings My Advice... You Vote", this reader (handle "j.lucas") explains:
As the Director of Operations of a mid-sized company, I get sales calls, pitches and the like on a daily basis. I am not an emotional decision maker-quite the opposite actually.So, is he right? Does he buy intellectually rather than emotionally? Or is he just fooling himself?I think he's fooling himself. The way I see it, having a compelling value proposition is just the ticket to entry. If you don't have that, then you don't have a viable B2B offering and no B2B customer is going to give you the time of day. However, if two B2B sales pros call on the same customer, and have virtually identical offerings with virtually identical value propositions, there's no question in my mind that Mr. Lucas will buy from the one who makes him "feel" better about the purchase.
If someone comes at me with emotional reasons to choose their service, company or product, I shut them down immediately. I simply don't care how good I'll "feel" by switching to the new company/product/service. If I currently receive a great product in a timely manner at a price that's acceptable to me-candidly explain where the benefit is in making the change. I've only experienced two salespeople who understand this concept. One gained a large account and the second came too late (he wanted the same business).
Show me savings, show me results, show me how the service will be better than what I am currently receiving...but don't cram it down my throat in doing so. I've spent a lot of time creating the efficiencies I have. The last thing I'm receptive to is being treated as if I have no concept of what I'm doing as Tom [Hopkins] suggests his first response [in the original post].
If Tom approached me with a product or service I would have shut him down about half way through the first reply. Price is not always the objection. I'm willing to pay more for a product/service that will serve my needs more effectively.
I'll go even further. Even if the sales pro that makes him "feel" better is offering a marginally worse deal than the other guy, Mr. Lucas will go with his emotions.
Because Mr. Lucas is human. And that's how human nature works.