Two Reasons

There are fundamentally two reasons why people don’t buy from you. 

If you ever have been in that position where somebody hasn’t bought something from you, the first thing we always feel is annoyance, irritation, possibly anger. We’re ultimately we’re driven by emotion because we’re human beings, but it’s never their fault. 

Anytime you feel annoyance, irritation, anger at the person from not going with you, you’re in the wrong! This is why there are two reasons people didn’t buy from you. 

Life ultimately is simpler than we like to believe. 

• Pineapple on pizza is fine. 
• Socks with sandals is okay. 
• It doesn’t really matter which way the toilet paper rolls,( assuming you have any of course)
  
  

And in business there are really only two reasons why people buy from you, and why they don’t buy from you. 

Number one is value. 

Number two is price. 

It’s always one of them, value and price. 

If they’re not buying it that’s why. 

So clarity of your message is vital. 

If the value is low, the price has to be low. Because ultimately it’s going to be a war against competitors fighting a price war. And that is going to be fundamentally true most of the time.

If the value is high, then the price becomes less relevant. The market becomes more elastic, more price flexible. Now adding value is always ideal. 

Competing in price is always dangerous, because someone can always just go lower than you. Price is a fragile base to compete from, but with value you can defend higher ground more easily. 

And here’s the best bit. 

Value satisfies fear. 

Price satisfies ego. 

What do I mean by that? 

Well we know that people move away from pain faster than they move towards pleasure, sadly. So value is not only more defendable, but it holds up against price sensitivity and delays fears. 

I’m getting a better deal, and getting more value. 

Ultimately if you’re competing on price, the only thing people can say is;

‘Well it was cheaper than everybody else.’ 

There’s nothing to do with value. 

In the 1970s and 80s, the saying in business was that;

‘Nobody got fired for hiring IBM.’

Not because IBM were cheap, I’m sure they’re not cheap. But because the perceived value and credibility of IBM was high enough to prevent shame, ridicule, failure and ultimately fear of hiring. 

Because even if it went terribly wrong you could say; 

‘But it was IBM! I mean you can’t blame me, it was IBM. You know I thought they’d do a great job. Yes it was more expensive, or maybe it wasn’t more expensive, but it’s IBM.’ 

So the bottom line is, you have to focus on answering those two questions around price and value, and ensuring that people see you and perceive you as a value, add not just the cheapest price. 

The cheapest price is always dangerous!

You mustn’t go there if you can avoid it. 

And if you do have to compete on price, add value as well! 

Because it will soften the price. 

It will create flexibility.

People might only buy the cheapest, but sometimes if there’s more value, they’ll spend a little more, and they won’t go with the cheapest, because the cheapest all is always perceived as the lowest possible option. 

So in marketing we know that if you give people three options that they will generally go with a middle option, depending where you position that middle option, nearer to cheap, or nearer to expensive. 

So ultimately the mission for you is how to use your marketing to make you the IBM of your space, so that price is almost an irrelevancy. That you buy the sure thing. That you buy something that no one’s going to disagree with you on the decision, because ultimately that’s what’s going to give people confidence and allay their fears.

I hope that helps. 

You can find out even more in our FREE Facebook and LinkedIn groups, just search Facebook and LinkedIn for FREE Marketing Help or come to the Tepfu pages on those platforms, and you’ll find us, while you’re there. 

You can also sign up for our daily golden marketing nugget, guaranteed sales free, image free, it’s just beautiful black and white text, and you can do that at Tepfu.com/EmailDaily

Hope that helps. 

If you’ve got any questions do let us know. 

Good luck!