The academic period is going to begin soon and visiting professor (l'intervenant) like me is getting ready for another adventure with a different group of people and personalities. It's a joy to transfer knowledge and see them growing.
While preparing the teaching materials for sales management students, I thought to share the summarised information for my entrepreneur friends on Linkedin, blog and twitter. So here is an attempt.
What to expect
- Introduction of Sales & Theory
- The mind is stream
- Short detail analysis of mind stages
- Conclusion
Introduction of Sales & Theories
As you know sales is the life blood of business, without this none of the enterprise either survived or will survive, directly or indirectly. With time different theory of selling has been developed such as:-
- Adidas Theory
- Situation Response Theory
- Buying Formula Theory
- Behavioural Equation Theory
In general Adidas theory and situation response theory is a seller oriented while buying formula and behavioural equation theory based on buyers in mind. There are several applications and teaching material built around these theories.
Practically speaking theories often perceive as a boring topic therefore here I will try to get into the practical scenario as much as possible. We are going to see how these theories help us to see the buyers mind.
In my opinion, any business, who wishes to be successful must study the mind of the buyer (our buying behaviour)—in other words, must take the psychological point of view (I am not a professional psychologist).
The mind a stream.
In discussing the mind of the buyer, our mental processes going on within the individual ideas, sensations, feelings, volitions and actions. There are two characteristics of the stream which deserve special notice, characteristics of our mental stream.
1 . The mind never stands still
It is in constant motion. The thoughts of one moment are quickly replaced by others. The mind of the buyer in a sale consists of a procession of sensations, feelings, and willings. From the beginning to the conclusion of the sale these flow along like a stream.
2. The mind is complex.
It is not a simple thing that we are dealing with, but an organism of many qualities and powers.
Gathering these two element psychologists define the selling stages as a mental stream of the buyer and categorised in six stages, people often talk about it in Adidas theory but here you are going to see the sales in psychological perspective:-
- Attention
- Interest
- Desire
- Confidence
- Decision and Action
- Satisfaction
These sequence of mind stages often used for TV ads or another form of advertisement, however, this sequence of buyers mind is not always true for all kind of sales, such as group selling vs individual, or Arm selling vs FMCG product selling or product vs service, however some principle can't be ignored for effective selling.
Here you should also keep in mind that stages are not in equal in length.The initial pulse of attention may last but a moment before merging into interest. Interest. may then endure for an hour. Moreover, a single stage may vary in length under different circumstances. Interest may endure for a minute, an hour, a day or a year.
Other than the psychological point of view there is an ethical and economic point of view in selling. To be successful in the market, a business must respect these view before attempting to understanding the buyer's mind. Now let's get into the detail of these stages to understand it better.
Short detail analysis of mind stages
In this section, you are going to see the nature, characteristics, impact and other different areas of mind stages: Attention, Interest, Desire, Confidence, Decision & Action, and Satisfaction.
Attention
This is a very important aspect in the field of advertisement but it's equally important in the field of selling as well. The human brain is very sensitive and raises attention whenever there is something of the routine. Nature of attention divided in two group, intensity and extensity. However, the entire explanation can be very long, therefore, I tried to introduce other fundamental points in bulletins:
- Intensity:
- Extensity:
- Others
- Any Changement
- Movement
- Simulated/suggested movement
- Effects of colour
- Repetition (wins attention & influences memory)
- Distribution of repetition (example: Google ads: we see a recently visited company ads in online news paper or other websites where we visit)
- Fashion phenomenon
- Media mode
Interest
After attention, buyer brain steps up for interest and need section. Theoretically speaking, there are two fundamental way to arose interest,
- First law of interest
- Second law of interest
First Law of interest: In order to create interest in a thing, give information about it (example: content marketing), again here other psychological views need to consider such as associate the new with the old in some natural and telling way, so that. the interest, being shed from point to point, finally suffuses the entire system of objects of thought.
If you look around or within, you will find that following Information provokes interest and often used for branding as well.
- Source of raw material
- Process of manufacturing (I like cultural tour and often end up buying thing which not forcefully needed)
- Facts of men who compose the firm
- Uses of commodity
Second Law of Interest: In order to create interest in a thing, arouse activity toward it. example: I often eat free "Fromage et pain" in front of Cheese shop, several times I bought the Fromage) or eating free cookies in front of a bakery shop, If you look around you can find many examples as such, I will love to see your experiences in the comment.
To stimulants the growth of interest there are following component of mental stream often taken into consideration
- Good feeling
- Imagination
- The law of association
- The empathy-a process of humanising objects, of reading or feeling ourselves into them.
Desire
An interest must lead to desire, you point should be taken into consideration to stimulate desire:
*Vivid image from buyers past and project them into a pleasant future image, buyer’s desire for an object proportionate to strong feelings of pleasantness.
*Understanding different future possibilities, for example, enjoying time with family etc
*Possibility to touch or experience the product/service before to buy.
*The buyer becomes more desirous of the object if he makes more violent movements toward it, some sign can be useful to indicate the "desire" level such as firmer grip while holding an object or spending more time in examination or showing the feeling of proprietorship of the objects etc.
*If the first movement toward an object results in its purchase, desire does not last very long. if the first movement does not bring about the attainment of the object. It is blocked in some way. The obstruction may be material: an intervening window glass; distance from the object pictured. Or it may be mental: an idea of some other object which is still more strongly desired. In such scenario, a seller usually employs reason, suggestion, and other mental aids.
*Understanding different future possibilities, for example, enjoying time with family etc
*Possibility to touch or experience the product/service before to buy.
*The buyer becomes more desirous of the object if he makes more violent movements toward it, some sign can be useful to indicate the "desire" level such as firmer grip while holding an object or spending more time in examination or showing the feeling of proprietorship of the objects etc.
*If the first movement toward an object results in its purchase, desire does not last very long. if the first movement does not bring about the attainment of the object. It is blocked in some way. The obstruction may be material: an intervening window glass; distance from the object pictured. Or it may be mental: an idea of some other object which is still more strongly desired. In such scenario, a seller usually employs reason, suggestion, and other mental aids.
Confidence
In next paragraph, you will see processes through which these habits of confidence and goodwill are built up.
Genesis and development of confidence. The feeling of, assured, crude and positive, which attaches to the objects during the infantile experience of the buyers. Theoretically, it is called "primitive credulity".
Every impression made upon the mind of a child tends to receive credence and is accepted unless it is offset by a contrary impression. The second stage is “ sensation-coefficient" where buyers mind associated with a brand with their personal experiences over the periods.
Confidence is stable but fragile. Confidence is stable but fragile. One peculiarity about confidence is that after it has passed through the stage of doubt and has secured the right to exist by means of a long agreement between impression ( “ simple reality feelings” ) and fact, then it stands square and solid.
You can say, of an individual in whom you have great confidence, “ I would trust him with my last Panny" And this solidity endures as long as the feeling of reality can attach itself unimpededly to the object. But let one slip occur and the structure is ruined.
Two devices for instilling confidence.
- The first is repetition for example slogan such as "ask the man who owns one", "there is reason", etc.
- The second is to arouse and maintain a feeling of satisfaction within the buyer or like in any other relationship.
Decision and action
At point to help a buyer in decision-making or to sell a product or a service, a seller has to give some reason, if you play nicely you can win or showing immaturity can make you lose the customer forever, it's a serious game.
In general, when you reason, you go through four clearly marked stages.
- Awareness of difficulties
- Location of difficulties
- The search for the solution
- The solution.
Some attention may require while reasoning. In appealing to the buyer through reason, the seller should guard himself delineate the problem of the buyer with exceeding sharpness. To do this you must study the buyer’s needs beforehand. Some one has remarked that a successful salesman must know more about the buyer’s business than the buyer does himself.
The second is to avoid wandering from the point at issue. The temptations to talk aimlessly are great, especially at stage three of a train of reasoning. In order to avoid such situation you may give different, be prepared to meet the argument but you must not need to bring them up yourself)
Other points are to understand the buyers' instinct movement of the situation and use the information to sell the product and service:
Instinct: An instinctive act is a series of acts of a hereditary nature, having a definite though non-conscious end, and accompanied by a characteristic feeling.
It is not a simple, rather is it made up of a number of simple acts. Observe the bird as she goes through the instinctive act of nest-building. She performs a series of simple actions: picking up a string here, a twig there, a hair yonder; and laying them in the nest.
In the same way, the instinctive actions of humans consist of separate acts chained together. Ofen similar & consistent experience as a business person helpful to gain such understanding of the buyers.
Often action of the buyer comes from two sources:
- Individual experiences and
- Racial experiences.
The second class are often is the ones upon which the seller may depend more firmly in moving the will of the buyer. Their superior strength lies in the following facts: Relatively more certain, idea systems, marked by feeling.
-Suggestion: Suggestion is regarded as mysterious. Much has been said during recent years about the psychology of suggestion and the possibility of using it in selling. We cannot enter into a discussion of the brain mechanism by which this transformation from idea to movement takes place. there are always many things in the mind- sensations, ideas, feelings, in great profusion.
Now each of these has its own motor consequences, and if left alone will probably produce them. Some of them help it and some hinder it. The task of the seller is to encourage those ideas which are favourable to his pet-idea and to suppress those which are contrary to it. Keep in mind to:
- Make one suggestion at a time
- Make only positive suggestion (no, not don't etc should be avoided)
- Chose indirect suggestion over direct suggestion (if buyer don't know their own mind then direct suggestion work better else they can be offensive)
- Use Auto-suggestion
Satisfaction-The goal
Satisfaction is the true goal of the sale. if it is satisfactory you willingly make a repeat purchase or recommend for your service, its one of the primary reason that every business seeks for customer satisfaction. It also gives:-
- A new conception of value.
- The sale a continuous process.
- Increase advertising outcome
Conclusion
Vola! I know I went in little detail in order to give you a complete picture, in the same time I tried to keep my point in short as much as possible, as you might have noticed. To conclude just keep in mind the sequence of buyers mind and put this to practice for your next advertisement or content marketing. Please feel free to comment or share the article if you found this useful. Why to practice or share? here we go :)
- 90% of what they learn when they teach someone else/use immediately.
- 75% of what they learn when they practice what they learned.
- 50% of what they learn when engaged in a group discussion.
- 30% of what they learn when they see a demonstration.
- 20% of what they learn from audio-visual.
- 10% of what they learn when they've learned from reading.
- 5% of what they learn when they've learned from lecture.
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