Editor’s note: This article was first published in March 2013. Its reference to Spain’s preference shares scandal (“preferentes”, sold by banks to small savers around 2009-2012) reflects the debate at that time.
Let’s start from the premise that customers think they know what they want, and even think they need what they want. In reality, when we set out to hire a service or buy a product outside our own field of knowledge, we as customers may think we know what we want, but we rarely know what we need, and in the end we go looking for what we think we want. (I’ll stop the wordplay there.)
As consumers, we are completely manipulable. Otherwise, marketing wouldn’t exist. (See: Product placement: when Hollywood tells you what to buy.) Have you ever wondered why you drink Coca-Cola instead of Pepsi, or why you like a particular singer when there are 1,000 singers who are much better? The thing is, in your business you can’t tell a customer that they don’t know what they need, because you would offend them. That’s where certain sales techniques come in, and in this particular case they are very hard to pull off.
The other day I was talking to a flour maker who has been producing natural flour for more than 50 years. Natural flour, he told me, tends to breed tiny bugs from microscopic eggs. What’s more, according to him, if the flour doesn’t breed those bugs over time, it’s because it contains chemicals to prevent them.
Customers want and need quality flour, but they want flour that doesn’t breed bugs, so what they really want is lower-quality flour at a lower price. In short, the customer doesn’t know what they want.
(See: Sensory marketing: the science of selling more.)
If you talk to boiler sellers, many will tell you that by paying a little more for a boiler you can save far more money than by buying a cheap boiler or an electric water heater. The manufacturer advises the customer, and if the salesperson isn’t careful in how they present it, the customer may think the salesperson is more interested in selling a different product from the one the customer wants.
If you’re the expert, why is it so hard to convince customers of what’s best for them?
You went to university, you specialised in a particular field, you believe in your product, and in your business you look for what’s best for your customer. You want your customer to be happy, to recommend you to their friends and to come back another time. Many people wonder: “If I’m the expert, why on earth do I have to waste so much time convincing someone? If I’m the expert, they should just do what I tell them, full stop.”
If you’re in this situation, don’t worry, it’s perfectly normal. I was one of the first to advise some acquaintances against preference shares (the “preferentes” Spanish banks sold to small savers), and in the end they fell victim to that investment product anyway.
Of course, if you think about it… why should they listen to me and believe me rather than a bank manager? In this case, among other things, I wasn’t selling anything, while the banker sold his product rather well, even if he used a few lies to do it.
The banker gave the customer what he thought they wanted, although it was neither what they wanted nor what they needed. I advised them on what they needed, but it wasn’t what they wanted.
Let’s apply this to our business
Imagine you have a giant dog and you have to give it some medicine. The medicine is extremely bitter and impossible for your dog to swallow. In fact, as soon as it smells it, your dog runs off.
You have two options. The first is to grab your dog and fight with it: hold it down, pin it to the floor, prise its jaws open and force the medicine in.
The other option is to hide the medicine in small portions inside a tasty steak, your dog’s favourite. You put it in front of the dog, and its own instincts will do the rest.
It’s a subtle way of giving your dog what it needs, hidden inside what it wants.
Do you have a way of giving your customers what they need, hidden inside what they want?
It isn’t that simple. A large percentage of entrepreneurs admit they have had to stop selling or making certain good-quality products and replace them with lower-quality ones which, in their view, end up costing the customer more in the long run. But they had to do it, and they had to give up on the idea of giving customers what they need in order to offer them what they want (or think they want).
So, do we give our customers what they want or what they need? And how do we get them to understand that what they don’t want at first is exactly what they need?
Further reading
Featured image: Humphrey Bolton, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
