Why do clients buy ?

By Linda Julian

You may be saying to yourself "if I knew the answer to that question, I'd be very wealthy!"  However, the answer isn't really all that elusive.

The CEO of a technology company recently offered the following insight to his sales and marketing team.  "I'm the one who signs the cheques.  For me to buy, you need to solve the two things that keep me awake at night  -  net profitability and getting our product to market faster than our competitors.  If you can prove to me that you will improve either of those, I'll sign the cheque … and I don't really care what you're selling !"

It's easy to forget this simple principle:  people buy to meet their needs or solve their problems.  To get them to buy from us, we need to clearly address whatever matters most to them.  In other words, we need to show them a clear value proposition  -  WIIFM or What's In It For Me?

Some of the reasons your clients will buy your services include:

• seeing a positive impact on their business
• improved financial performance
• increased market share
• higher client/customer retention rates
• improved market position
• automation of labour-intensive processes
• to beat a competitor to an important commercial advantage
• to avoid or reduce unacceptable risk
• regulatory compliance.

There are many other objective.  To sell effectively, it is critical to identify their objective  -  the issues that keep your client awake at night.