How people make buying decisions
When structuring sales proposals for customers, and training others to do the same, I want to know how people make decisions.
There is a theory that buyers sit down with a spreadsheet, weighting factors according to their priority and then scoring the alternatives presented to them by competing suppliers.
This was never a theory I subscribed to, although 30-odd years ago I attended a Kepner Tregoe course on problem solving and decision making that used scoring methodologies. I got value from the course because they offered one very simple method in problem solving. If a problem has arisen, what’s changed? I use that all the time.
But I can’t recall since using a scoring system to make any decision. Nor do I know anyone else who does, at least not in regular business.
Instinct, gut feel comes into it a lot for me and, I think, for most people. When I trust my gut instinct it works, when I go against it, it usually fails to work out.
It was very reassuring, then, to read a couple of books, that showed that most people make decisions based on instinct. Both books were based on detailed research of decision making by people in all walks of life. The first was Simple Heuristics that Make Us Smart by Gerd Gigerenzer, Peter M. Todd which I read a couple of years ago and, more recently, Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions by Gary Klein.
Instinct is actually the sum of your experience. So, when you instinctively feel that a person is untrustworthy and you shouldn’t be dealing with them, that is instinct telling you that you’ve seen those behavioural characteristics before and they aren’t the right ones.
People in business make the same instinctive judgements in their buying decisions and we need to understand this when framing our meetings, presentations and proposals. A presentation that is well structured and easy to follow and understand, tells the audience that these people know what they’re doing and are worth pursuing further.
A client meeting that is structured to gain a complete understanding of the client’s problems or needs, the implications of leaving these unaddressed, will show the buyer that these people are professional; and you get to the next stage.
Understanding people and how and why they make their buying decisions, makes all the difference when you’re selling.
Tags: Instinct, Buying Decision, Sales Proposals
