I bet you’ve asked yourself this question several times.
I know I have. It’s…
“How do I get people to buy what I’m selling?”
Why does this question spell trouble?
Isn’t that the entire point of marketing?
That’s what I used to think, back when I was in the IT business. I remember we had started selling an IT security product, designed to stop errant employees from stealing data on USB pen drives.
Sounds like a great idea right? We got so excited, thinking about how this wonderful piece of software was going to help our customers sleep easier at night.
At first, we got some encouraging results. A few customers snapped it up. But the majority… weren’t so enthusiastic. Although we knew they needed this additional security, they just thought of it as a ‘nice to have’.
“What’s wrong with these people?”
Is what I’d wonder as I walked out of yet another “sounds interesting, we’ll get back to you” meeting. We tried every angle we could think of to get people to buy this wondrous product – case studies, sending them news stories about data theft, giving them demos of the product.
But each time, they’d just shrug their shoulders and say “it hasn’t happened to us yet.”
Eventually, I learned something. They may have needed protection against their staff stealing their data, but they didn’t want it.
And trying to get someone to buy something that they don’t really want is extremely hard work. Especially if you think you know better than they do.
This is one of the things that often seems so unfair when you first set up in business. After all, you studied hard at school, and put in long hours at work to get the level of knowledge you have now. You very job title used to command respect.
Why on earth should you have to persuade people? They should just do what you tell them to, because you’re the expert, right?
(I don’t know about you, but at no point during my time at school did my teacher say to me: “work hard, get good grades, go to university, and after that you’ll have a deliver a series of seminars to convince people why they should pay you for all this expertise you’ve acquired.”)
Well…. you’re right: it’s probably not fair. We could spend all day complaining about it. And we could spend our entire lives trying to persuade people to do what’s good for them.
I don’t fancy our chances though. Just think of all the money that governments pour into getting people to stop smoking, eat less cake and lay off the red wine a bit, year after year.
Personally, I’ve come to the conclusion that humans are pretty much wired to ignore what we’re supposed to do in favour of what we want to do. We just need to roll with that.
So what am I supposed to sell? Chocolate Cake?
Well, maybe. Chocolate cake is very tasty, after all. But if you don’t fancy the life of a wondering chocolatier, here’s another suggestion:
Imagine you have to give a bitter-tasting pill to a large dog. You could wrestle it to the ground, prise its jaws apart, force the pill down its throat, and then call the hospital to ask them to sew your fingers back on.
Or you could wrap the pill up in a large, tasty steak, put it in front of the dog, and allow doggie nature to do the rest of the work.
So – how could you wrap the services you know your client needs in something they actually want?
Tell me in the comments!
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Great article on the difference between needs and wants. I especially liked the analogy at the end with the pill for the dog. It’s so true.
Of course it does present a bit of a moral dilemma at times. The alcoholic wants another bottle of whisky, he needs to give up the booze and get his life back on track.
The fat person wants the second bit of chocolate cake but needs to say No to the first and to spend 30 minutes a day working out.
the answer?
To find a higher want.
Glad you enjoyed it
Finding a higher want is very powerful!