Fourteen Lectures on Consumer Psychology

Chapter 14: The Impact of Rationality on Purchasing

Many decisions made by consumers are led by emotions, and sometimes they also make rational judgments, and their rationality can promote or hinder the conclusion of transactions.When this kind of rationality hinders the conclusion of the transaction, what you need to do is to use precise and precise words to describe the difficulties consumers may encounter, and propose logical solutions to make consumers feel that you are a "rational first" person.Once rational consumers have this feeling, a deal is imminent.

After going through the previous stages of psychological activity, consumers are ready to pay for goods.This psychological state at this time is unique, and it can be called the best psychological moment for determination, decision-making, and getting things done.Lecture 8 once discussed the state of mental activity at this moment, that is, this is the psychological moment that can best achieve the expected purpose.In this lecture, we will also discuss several important mental activities that occurred before the instant of this mental activity: rationality, instinct and suggestion.These sub-important psychological activities have greatly helped sales in the previous stages, but later these "helps" often slowly turn into resistance, and even become the culprit for consumers to change their minds when they decide to buy.Therefore, this lecture will focus on them.

what is rational

When a person judges rationally, he will go through the following four stages: ①finding difficulties; ②determining difficulties; ③finding solutions; ④solving difficulties.

To illustrate these four periods, imagine a sales campaign.In this sale, the consumer decides whether to buy a car tire based purely on reason.Suppose a salesman sells a tire with a design to prevent the rim from breaking. How can he let consumers know this and then decide to buy it?
The first step is to find the difficulty.First of all, let the consumer realize that the biggest problem his car is currently facing is the short life of the tires.Consumers will be skeptical about this issue.Perhaps, he himself was not aware of the problem at all.In this case, the salesman needs to describe the problem in vivid terms.How to make an effective description, this issue will be discussed later.

The second step is to identify the difficulty.At this stage, the salesman needs to tell consumers why the tires are easy to wear, and attribute this reason to the tire rims are easy to damage.A salesman can use images of old tires to illustrate this point, allowing consumers to see how the outer wall of the tire has become more susceptible to damage due to the wear of the steel rim.It can even show a more dramatic scene. A user recently purchased an old-style tire. The outer wall of the tire was smoothed by the road and became thinner and thinner. Later, only the innermost steel rim remained, and finally only a single tire was left. The rims rolled back into the garage.The rim came back intact because the old style tire used this new material car rim.

Such scenarios are novel to consumers.Through such scenarios, consumers will be surprised to discover potential problems with the old tires they often use.Then, the salesman can continue to convince them from the following aspects: the outer wall of this kind of tire is made of many layers, the tire structure is tight and strong, and it will never be worn out as in the advertising scene; The non-cracking steel rim design can better ensure that the outer material of the tire is not easy to wear.

At this point, the salesman's main goal is to describe a vivid scenario of how badly the consumer would be if the tires he was selling were not used.Generally speaking, the clearer the consumer is about their own situation, the more anxious they will feel about the scene described by the salesman.At this stage, the salesman can learn from the behavior of the evangelical pastor in "selling" religion.Pastors tell would-be religious converts how much they will lose if they do not learn the teachings of the gospel, and that they will have nothing to turn to when faced with life's big problems and trials.Evangelical pastors use so many vivid words to describe this scene that in the end potential "religion consumers" have to believe that believing in religion is the only way to solve the problems they encounter in life.In a way, a successful evangelical pastor is the perfect salesman. He can even give a salesman a professional course in consumer psychology.

The third step is to find a solution to the problem.If you want consumers to believe that other methods will fail except this method, you must tell consumers why those methods fail and where they all fail.A salesman can show consumers the data of the average life span of tires required in a set of tire production standards, and then show the average life span of the steel rim tires he sells.Finally came to the conclusion that buying the latter tire is the best way to solve this problem.

After these three steps, consumers will transform from passive listeners of advertising praises to active opponents.He would present his own past experience as an argument against the salesman's assertion.They will say that there may be problems with the tires you sell, and they will put forward their own opinions to refute the solutions you propose.The scene at this point is a bit like being in a courtroom, with both sides constantly presenting opposing evidence and new arguments.For any evidence involved in an advertisement, the judge (consumer) will seriously consider and judge, and he will use past experience to measure and verify the authenticity of the evidence.

If a salesman wants to defend his product, he must provide arguments that can refute consumer objections.He had to show for real how tough the fibers were in the tires he was selling, made up of countless layers of these fibers, stuffed with a lot of material that couldn't be easily damaged anywhere that was prone to wear, etc.

These rebuttal evidence can show that the salesman is familiar with the entire production process and has mastered all the production processes of the product.This point reinforces a point made in Lecture 5 that a salesman must know everything about the product he is selling.

Unknowingly, it has entered the final stage - solving difficulties. It is also during this period that consumers begin to agree with the salesman's point of view, that is, the tires sold by the salesman can solve the difficulties they encounter.The sign of this situation is that the consumer says: "So, I need..." If this series of sales reasoning is seamless and well-founded, then reaching a conclusion means the end of the entire sales process.In the end, consumers will have trust and satisfaction in their hearts.

Sales Tactics to Arouse Consumers' Rationality

If you want to attract consumers through logical reasoning, salesmen need to pay attention to the following aspects:

First, use precise and precise words to describe the difficulties consumers may encounter.To do this, the salesman must study the needs of consumers in advance.It is often said that a successful salesman knows everything about the customer better than they themselves.

Second, avoid digressing.Aimless small talk is very beneficial, especially in the third stage of reasoning and selling, and can be used to defuse the atmosphere of sharp confrontation.Here, in order not to digress, the salesman would do well to list a short "sermon" about the sale and the plan:
1. Make it difficult: Your tires wear out fast.

2. Determine the problem: the tire rim is cracked.

Arguments: a,b,c,d
3. Tried solutions: a, b, c, d (rebuttal arguments that consumers may raise. The salesman can prepare different arguments in advance for the questions that consumers may raise, but cannot abruptly State your objections).

4. New tires can meet your needs and solve difficulties.

In specific sales situations, an enlarged version of this outline can be used.A salesman who understands his products and is familiar with consumer psychology can make consumers have full confidence in the products he sells through logical reasoning.

Although it is said that through logical reasoning, a salesman can guide consumers to buy a certain product, but this sales method cannot be completely relied on.Few successful sales are based entirely on logical reasoning.The evidence supporting this view is some advertising data from non-reasonable sales methods. These advertisements generally use pictures (irrational materials) to persuade consumers to buy goods, and rarely use rational analysis to explain product characteristics. This kind of advertisement currently accounts for all 92% of the number of advertisements.

In fact, in many sales, the salesman does not use the logical reasoning method as the main sales method.As mentioned in Lecture 6, many decisions made by consumers are actually led by emotions.But because many consumers hope that they are a rational person who can rationally judge and decide to buy a product, salesmen use logical reasoning methods to make them feel that they have made a purchase decision after careful thinking and reasoning. ".An experienced salesman understands this nature of human beings, so when he finds that consumers show purchase intentions for a certain product, he will express a set of "reason first" viewpoints to prove the correctness of consumers' feelings, and finally prompt the consumer to purchase the product.

Besides this icing on the cake role, logical reasoning can also play a serious and decisive role in sales.Especially for those consumers who often buy a certain product, such as professional purchasing agents, it is very important for them to be rational at all times.To know how to lead a sale with strict logical reasoning, a salesman needs to do a detailed study of those smart consumers and purchasing agencies.

(End of this chapter)