Five Reasons Why People Don’t Buy

In last month’s issue, we wrote about the five reasons why people buy, and they all begin with the letter P: protection, pride, pleasure, profit and price.

All the reasons people buy can usually be attributed to one of these five Ps. There are also five main reasons why people don’t buy. These are in no particular order.

No Need: Direct from “Selling 101”: “No need, no sale.” If your prospect really doesn’t have a need for what you are selling, there will be no sale — so don’t waste your time.

Hopefully you will do some pre-call planning and know about your prospect’s needs before you arrive. Pre-call planning could be as simple as making a cold call and by using your powers of observation to detect a need on the spot.

In many cases, you are selling an item or service that your prospect doesn’t know about or they do not know that they need it. In this case, you will have to establish a need and present a solution — or fulfill — that need.

No Hurry: After a fantastic presentation, have you ever heard your prospect say, “Let me think about it.” Ouch. In this busy, busy world, they may think about your proposition for a minute or two — if you are lucky.

Salespeople should be ready for all of the objections that they might encounter. “Let me think about it” is certainly an objection.

If you plan ahead and build answers to expected objections into your presentation, you stand a much better chance at securing the sale. For instance: “The sooner we can install this fantastic product, the sooner you will be saving money, time, getting better results, etc.”

Then, when the “Let me think about it” comes up, you can come back to the “sooner is better” part of your presentation and remind them of the reasons they should “hurry up.”

No Desire: If you are selling cars and someone wants a new car, they have a desire and you are over this hump, but if you are selling cleaning supplies or services, you may need to fan the desire.

What does the prospect desire? In your business it’s likely to be healthier and safer facilities. By asking the right questions and listening, you should be able to uncover their specific desires.

No Trust: If your prospect doesn’t trust you, you will not make the sale. You need to ask yourself, “Why don’t they trust me?”

In many cases, it isn’t that they don’t trust you, it’s that they don’t know you well enough.

Your first objective is to build trust. There are a number of ways to do this and one of the most important ways is to always do what you say you will do and do it on time.

No Money: If your account doesn’t have any money — I mean really doesn’t have any money — then you don’t want their business.

Other times, “no money” means “no money in their budget at this particular time,” or something along these lines. Maybe you will have to ask, “How can we help you fit this into your budget at this time, and have you start taking advantage of this terrific opportunity?”

Find out if there is money in another budget that can be transferred to meet their need. Make sure to ask lots of questions. “No money” doesn’t always mean “no money.”

Your job as a sales consultant is to help the buyer overcome these objections and help them take advantage of your outstanding proposition.

If you give some thought to the points presented in this article and the last one, you can build your presentations around the various selling situations you’ll encounter using these 10 reasons “Why.”

To share your selling ideas, fax: (414) 228-1134, contact Mr. Dixon at (877) 379-3566.