When faced with a decision to buy something, every buyer makes a choice.
And it is a simple one.
Is the product or service I am looking to buy worth the money that the other person/company is charging?
To make this decision the buyer will consider a number of factors. Here are 5 of the most important aspects below.
What they physically can afford.
Everyone has limits on money and resources they can access or borrow. We all might want to buy a private jet to take us around the world but if we don’t have or can’t borrow the £50m plus to buy or lease the plane then we can’t buy it. Reality.
What they are prepared to spend.
Everyone has their own limits of what they feel comfortable shelling out on a specific item. Whilst some may feel investing over $32m in a giant spider is good value, others wouldn’t spend that as long as they had breath in their lungs. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
The extent of the pain and problem that they have.
A bottle of water would normally sell for £1 to £2 but yet if you were walking in a desert without water and needed some to survive then would you spend £20,000 to stay alive? I bet you would. Life with no money is better than money with no life.
Their confidence that the solution can solve their current position.
I may be intrigued by a £5,000 tablet that allows me to eat what I want and still lose weight each week but if I don’t have any confidence that it will work then I’m not buying. We covered building belief a few weeks ago. Here is the link if you missed it.
The emotional feeling that the end outcome will give them.
Can you put a price on seeing live your beloved sports club win a trophy for the first time in your life? Even when the ticket will cost over £x thousands of pounds? Many would say ‘You bet’. They will always look back and say ‘I was there and that feeling was priceless’.
These and other factors contribute to what is the ‘Value Gap’
The value gap is the gap between the current position and the desired end position.
If the gap is too large, the buyer stays where they are and the seller loses out.
Sellers will often hear phrases such as
‘I can’t justify spending that amount’ or
‘We/I simply don’t have those funds available to us right now’ or
‘I like it but I just don’t like it enough’ or
‘I just can’t see how it will work for me/us’
It’s painful when that happens. All that built up emotion and energy for the sale which just gets lost.
But it can AND SHOULD have been avoided.
Your job as a seller is to bridge the gap.
You do that through insight, information, and evidence.
But how do you know what they think? And what do they really value?
I understand you want to ‘bridge the gap’ but it’s not that easy I can hear you saying.
You want to understand what the buyer DOES VALUE and how you can take them on a journey they BELIEVE in.
But how??
How can you find out what the buyer REALLY values and what they think about those 5 key points?
By getting inside their mind. By understanding them.
And how do you do that?
By becoming an expert in asking the right questions in the right way. When you do this, the layers of the onion start to peel away.
Do that, you win the sale.
