The Buying Motives Gap

Hurrying to catch a plane  recently in Denver, I realized I was hungry and had to make a choice quickly. The cooked-to-order food at a local shop was appealing but looked too spicy. After a glance at my watch, I headed for McDonald’s because I knew exactly what I would get and exactly how I would get it–fast.

Fundamentally, the “reasons to buy” are necessity (need) and desire (want). At the airport, my surface needs and wants happened to be the same: to satisfy my hunger and to do so quickly. The seller, McDonald’s, was well aware of those reasons. But, for me, a third reason existed beneath the surface: avoiding the spicy unknown. That reason, called “motive,” is unique to the way I think about food. McDonald’s couldn’t possibly know about it but, of course, didn’t have to. The case is not so clear cut in the business-to-business arena.

Motive is “the need behind the need.”  As the dictionary points out, motive is “a reason for doing something,  especially one that is hidden or not obvious. ” (Emphasis added.) In B2B sales understanding customer buying motives–what is hidden or not obvious–can be crucial. Closing a complex sale is much more difficult than offering a hamburger to someone who’s hungry. It’s a real challenge to  persuade  a prospect to buy your product or service o ver the competition.  It’s even more challenging if the buyer doesn’t realize a problem exists, and you need to help him recognize it and the implications he faces if he doesn’t solve it.

During some 20 years in business, we’ve researched buyer motives in the markets of our B2B clients, and we’ve learned two key lessons that we’d like to share.

#1: You probably know only about half of what you need to know. Our clients are usually aware of only about half of the buying motives our research ultimately unearths. We know this because at the beginning of a project, we ask our clients why their customers buy from them instead of the competition. We’re looking for the motives beyond need and want. In most cases clients are correct in what they do know about how their customers make buying decisions. But, after our research, what they learn they  don’t  know often surprises and sometimes even shocks them.

We call this lack of knowledge the “buying motives gap.”

Why is the buying motives gap so important?  Clearly, if you don’t know all of the buying motives (including those needs behind the needs), then short term you’re leaving money on the table. Advertising, sales process, lead generation, Web content, and other marketing and sales communications are hitting only the outer rings of your targets, not the bullseye. Less clear is that knowing hidden motives in a market can alert you to trends that, longer term, could change the nature of your business and give you entirely new targets to zero in on.

At the retail level buying motives are usually fundamental. Some customers  need  to shop for groceries late at night because of their work schedules. Or they  want  to shop late at night because their supermarket is much less crowded then.

One of our clients tracks millions  of anonymous credit-card transactions across “everyday spend” stores known to satisfy specific buying motives, such as farm-to-table, curated assortments, even the deli’s house-made chicken salad. By collecting data on millions of transactions, our client helps its clients identify and understand why shoppers “leak” from one retail category to another or from one type of store to another. Without those insights, the retailers our client serves might be shooting blindfolded or, worse, shooting at the wrong targets.

“Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.”
-Leonardo da Vinci

#2: Knowing the needs behind the needs is not enough. Understanding how motives influence purchase processes unlocks the “da Vinci Code” of motive, if you will, “to prompt action” by your customers. One familiar example is the car industry. Practically, we need and want functional transportation. But emotionally we also have less tangible motives–to appear successful, youthful, or sporty–that in reality drive our decision-making.

A more subtle business-to-business example is the need of all businesses to reduce exposure to risk. Buyers too often reject bids from high-quality smaller or less well-known companies, for example, in favor of so-called name companies. They want to justify their decision if an operation goes bad: “Hey, I chose the big name. It’s not my fault things didn’t work out.” For a seller to make a sale in the face of that kind of motive, he or she must first know the issue exists and then know how to develop and use a strong, customized sales process to overcome it.

What motivates your customers to buy from you?  You probably know many of the reasons. But if you’d like to talk about how to learn more, please call or e-mail us. Our research process has uncovered some terrific intelligence over the years, enabling our clients to win a lot more business.

Most companies we meet do not have a formal, on-going process for identifying and understanding buying motives. The consequences are almost always less revenue, fewer customers, and a narrower–or non-existent–competitive advantage. We can be reached at 847-446-0008 Ext. 1 or  pkrone@productivestrategies.com.

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