Why Do People Buy?

by Jim Labadie (Fitness Professional & Author)

Ever notice that people spend HUGE amounts of money on things that you might never spend half that much on?

Let's take cars for example. Why do some people spend over a hundred thousand dollars on a car?

Besides that fact that they have the money. Why do they do it?

They could very easily buy a car for a fraction of the price and still get from point A to point B, right?

So why do they spend that much money on a car? Emotion.

Sales is different from the benefit rich marketing that draws potential clients to you. When you are dealing directly with fitness prospects you shouldn't focus on features or benefits.

People buy emotionally not logically.

And they will always buy for their reasons and not yours. So the trick is to get prospects to talk and find out what their emotional reason for buying is.

How do you do that?

It's not always simple. But I can tell you this: The people who more readily talk about their emotional reasons are the ones who are really ready to hire you.

They aren't just "kickin' tires."

Selling is about listening, not talking. Prospects only care about what they want. Not what you want. So listen to what they have to say. The less talking you do the better the chance you have of selling something.

Also, never answer an unasked question. If you're talking about topics that you think they should ask, or you would ask, but they aren't actually asking, then you are doing two things:

1-You aren't listening for an emotional reason as to why they would hire you.

2-You are risking the chance of saying something they don't want to hear.

Number two is a little tricky.

Say for example you're doing one of those God-awful presentations and you start talking to a woman about osteoporosis because you think it's of interest to a woman her age.

However, she isn't at risk for it and could care less. She came to you because of her high blood pressure.

But now since you started talking about osteoporosis she may think you can't really help her. You very well may have blown your sale.

And yeah, this is a ridiculously simple exampe, but it's only made to make things cystal clear.

Her emotional reason to buy was high blood pressure and the fear of what may happen to her if she doesn't get hers under control.

But you talked about everything under the sun about fitness except blood pressure. Maybe you covered it at the end for a minute but she was unimpressed.

And now, even though you could have talked about blood pressure until you were blue in the face, she is leaving.

Why?

Because you were talking and not listening. She just left with your money in her wallet! And much, much worse, she still doesn't have anyone to help her with her health problem.

Again, a very basic example, but I hope you get my point. Stop talking and start listening. Unless, that is, you don't want the money.

Go get em'