How Do Buying Decisions Get Made

How do buying decisions get made ?

It’s all about the rational, logical consideration of objectives and the problem at hand especially in B2B selling, right ?

You’ve heard it before … “People act on emotion and justify with logic. From complex to completely transactional, impulse purchases, emotions drive buying decisions. The examples are legion and science is stacking up one study after another that demonstrate how emotion influences the choices we make.”

But Sharon Drew Morgen has a slightly different take on that axiom.

Well, please take this little bit of sales coaching, it’s not always about the rational and logical.

You are selling to PEOPLE and people have histories and prejudices that influence how they think and feel and how they buy.
They may not even be consciously aware of how those prejudices affect their decisions but they do.

As Sharon writes …

“As a person who thinks in systems (I have Asperger’s), I’m here to tell you that decisions do not get made based on information but on beliefs – personal, idiosyncratic values that we each uniquely hold dear: what may seem rational to one person is not rational to another. And it’s all subjective regardless of what end you sit on.”

“If you have good data that the new software you’re being asked to use will be superior to what you’ve been using, the rational decision would be to accept/adopt the material. Yet you have a fear that when using the new technology your job will change, you won’t be competent at your job, you’ll suffer some diminished deference from your colleagues, and you won’t be able to ever get as competent as you are now with the existing software. Those internal voices – the fears and the resistances, the avoidance and the confusion – are what determine your decision, not the ‘rationality’ of the potential solution.”

For more of Sharon’s excellent article click on the link below