Wednesday, February 22, 2012

How Create The Psychological Desire To Buy From You (part 1)


Understand How Buyer Decisions
Are Made In This Article
Content marketing is great, getting something to go viral is awesome.

But the truth is that those things won't actually make you more money.  At the end of the day you have to get people to want to actually buy your products and services.

This series of posts is going to deal with how people make buying decisions and will cover that process all the way down to the psychological level.

The goal will be for your business to implement a process that is so great, that appeals so much to how people make decisions, that someone almost can't help but purchase from you.

There are many techniques for doing this, and in this post I'll be sharing a few of them.

Continue reading to learn how people make buying decisions so that you can get more customers easier than ever before.

"I'm right and you're wrong and there's nothing you can do about it" (from the movie Matilda)

People do not like to be wrong.  Almost never will someone older than about 21 or 22 change political parties. In any discussion of politics, minds are never changed.  Both parties will stridently walk away from the discussion continuing to believe what they did before it.

People have such an unending need to be right, that when they believe something that is wrong, and demonstrated absolutely that they are, often they will make up reasons why they couldn't actually be wrong.

The so-called "Heaven's Gate" cult believed that the Hale-Bopp comet was actually a spaceship populated by aliens.  Those "superior beings" would, upon passing the planet, take up the faithful and take them away to live on an alien paradise.  The belief was that they were going to be alive when this happened.

Part of "getting ready" process basically meant that the leader, Marshal Applewhite, killed his followers and also himself.

The two remaining people were left with a dilemma.  The people were not taken up to the spaceship.

To continue to "be right" they basically changed the belief to say that instead the people's energy was sent up, or that their DNA had already been captured, or any number of other things so that the "aliens" could simply "revive" the people into more perfect bodies that would be suited to the aliens world.

People hate to be wrong and will make things up or change other things in an effort to continue to be right.

So how can you make use of that to make more sales?

When someone does something, they will look for reasons why the action they took was the correct action to take ... often by doing even more.

In other words, if you can get someone to join your list, they'll want to know that they were right to do that.

Give their minds some ammunition by giving good content.  If you don't, their need to be right will shift to a belief that you're just another two bit huckster.

Now that you are giving good content, when it comes time to ask for an order, it's a fairly simple matter to have them continue walking the path they already started.

Get you potential customers to clearly understand that they were right to follow you in the first place.  Then get them to understand that they were right to join your mailing list.  If those things were the right thing to do, they could "prove it to themselves" by doing even more of what's right by buying from you.

Now, I stated that in a way that was insanely obvious.  If you state it in those terms it'll backfire.  I just wanted you to understand the point.  Create a journey for your potential customers that they want to be on and enjoy.





Give great content to make following you the right thing to do.  Give more great content when the take other actions (joining your list, following you on other social media, etc).  The more you can make it the right thing for someone to expand the number of actions following you, the more likely they will also "be right" when they buy from you.

You can make it very easy for someone to purchase from you in this way because it becomes for them a natural thing to do.  You won't have to "convince" them, or "sell them" or any other hard selling nonsense.

It's a journey that you can put people on where they naturally flow into being your customer.

Here is a video that perfectly illustrates what I'm talking about here:




Uhh... What did you just say?

The next step to getting your customers to understand, at a deep an unwavering subconscious level that they should buy from you is to use their own words when you talk to them.

I'm not saying you should be a parrot.  That would be annoying and then they'd think they'll be right to leave you.  The concept behind this technique is in a lot of ways an extension of what I just talked about in the last technique.

You see, one of the ways to know that someone is in total agreement with you is when they use your own words.  The same can be said of your customers.  They will know that you understand them the best when words very similar to their own are being used by you.

Here's the great thing about this.  Once you are using their own words, and understanding where they are coming from and what their wants truly are, you actually do understand them better and can actually help to give them what they want.

You understand the exact problem, the exact desire.  Doing that however requires that you know what words your customers are using to describe their problem or what they want.

So how do you get that information?

The first and easiest answer is a forum (or multiple forums).  Forums allow you to see what people are talking about, what their problems and desires are, but just as importantly what words they are using to describe it.

The second way to find out is so unconventional, so downright strange you may not want to do it.

You ask. :-)

Ask the people that follow you on social networks what their issues are and use their own words.

Ask them what they want, ask them what they need.  Just ask.  It really is that simple.

The Lesson of the Bohemian Club

It's probably the single most exclusive club in the world.  They won't just accept anyone and getting in is an enormous challenge.  They literally make it difficult for someone to give them a reported one hundred grand a year, and those few times when a spot is opened up people will go to great lengths to join.

The same could be said of the women's version, the Belizean Grove.  Getting in is exceedingly difficult.

So how does any of that help you to make more?

It does in two ways.  First, and I've talked about this before, taking just any client that comes along is a really bad idea.  By being exclusive, by not taking just anyone, it sets you up for only taking clients you'll actually enjoy having.

Not only that, but when you're exclusive, you set yourself up in a position where people will literally fight for your acceptance.  Now I don't know about you, but instead of having to "sell" a client, I'd much rather a client try to convince me to accept them.

It flips around the whole dynamic.  You see, I don't want to be in a position of having to convince people, or do any number of hard sell games.  I want them to have to convince me they're going to be worth the time and effort I'll put into them.

You do that by partly by being exclusive (along with using the previous two techniques).  By letting potential customers know that you have plenty of clients right now, don't really need any more necessarily, so they'll need to give you reason to accept them.

Not only that, but things that are "exclusive" are also more expensive.  That means you can charge much more, have much better profits, and enjoy your time off that much more.

You Shall Obey


How would you like people in your market to do what you said, simply because you said they should do it?

How would you like to be able to say, "This is the best product or service of its kind," and have people listen to you and buy from you, even when you come right out and say that you're going to be making some money in affiliate commission (always be up front about that by the way).

In fact, if you do this correctly, people will happily buy products you recommend.  They will buy things glad that you're going to be getting some of the commission on it (I'll be talking about this later).

This power to get people to do what you want stems from being an authority in your market.  Take a look at how often someone like Marcus Sheridan recommends some kind of action which people then happily follow.  I know I talk about him a lot, but that's because he's awesome, knows what he's talking about, and speaks with authority.

The power of being an authority is crazy.  In the book MindControlMarketing.com (written some years ago but still one of the best books on the subject) the author Mark Joyner gives several stories of how potent being an authority to your market can be.  Then there is this video from CarmenSognonvi:




Notice how much this plays into the previous things that we've talked about.  The great thing is that you can do this from the very beginning of when someone makes their very first contact with you.  You can create things that are epic, and only create things that are epic.  Nothing simple good enough, nothing that's the same junk as everyone else.

If all of the content on your blog/site is massively high quality, that will build authority.  However, it's also the way you present yourself.  It's the "tone" of your content, the "tone" of your videos.  It's creating content that has more than one method or style of presenting information the information (text, graphics, video, cartoons, etc).

Is doing this easy?  No it isn't.  Which probably explains why there aren't very many authorities in any market.  Being an authority in your market is simple, but not necessarily easy.  All you have to do is create better content than everyone else, for longer than they are willing to do it.

That one sentence is unquestionably the hallmark of a top market leader.  It is what allows someone to make very simple comments that potential clients (and current clients) will follow almost without question.

9 comments:

  1. Woah! Awesome article!
    However, I do have a question for you.
    For instance, I have a reviews site in Romanian(that's my native language). I write a lot every single object you could find online, write the advantages and the disadvantages. How can you become an authority in fields like printing or kitchen items, or generally speaking, in fields where people are not used to face authority voices?

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. See my comment below, when I replied I didn't do it by replying to your comment so you may not be told about it.

      Delete
  2. @Matei that there aren't any "authority voices" actually makes it EASIER for you to become an authority. If you start doing reviews, and showing you know what you're talking about, people will listen.

    Think of it like this, if you do a review of a product you make someone else's life easier because they can then know if it's good for them to buy.

    Does that make sense?

    ReplyDelete
  3. This was an extremely informative article. My question however has to do with the "Bohemian Club" thing. If I sell actual physical stuff, how can I also be exclusive?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. First off, you need to remember that EVERY business is in the information business. You job is to educate customers in your market. By doing that, you also make yourself the defacto expert and that means you can charge more right out of the gate because people will pay more to do business with the best.

      Secondly, remember that you only have a certain quantity on hand. Say what it is. Say that you don't expect to have very many for very long so if someone wants it, then they have to buy it.

      Reinforce this by changing what you actually have on hand.

      Further, and I've talked about this in other posts, package your products up with other things and other information to improve the value that you bring.

      Hope this helps

      Delete
    2. What do you mean by "package your products up with other things and information..."?

      Delete
    3. Let say someone buys a golf club from you. Instead of selling just a club, also include a video on how to improve your swing.

      Does that explain it better?

      Delete
  4. Thanks, great article.

    ReplyDelete