Do you understand why your customers buy from you? Is it because your product or service is the best of its kind? Personally, I don’t believe that people buy things because they are the best. I think the reasoning goes much deeper than that. I believe that they buy things because of two reasons:

1. The problem that the purchase helps them solve; and
2. The feelings that they get from the purchase.

Let me explain. Solutions to problems means delivering the customer a defined benefit. For example:

• Grow your sales by 20% in one year
• How to cut costs by 25% or more
• How to lose 10 pounds in one month
• How to take the family on holiday without breaking the bank etc

Good feelings, on the other hand, means the sustained feeling(s) that your customer will get from buying your brand. For example:

• I look great and feel great in these shoes
• My friends will think I am successful if I drive this car
• If I take this course then I’ll be more respected in my workplace
• This video camera will allow us to capture and relive memories of our family growing up.

How are you making your prospects feel? How are you solving their problems?

This is a simplification of the decision-making process. However, I do believe that all of our decisions boil down to these two reasons. However, if you would like to explore why you or your customers buy, then check out this great online tool from the folks over at Wowza, an agency that does lots of cool stuff in the areas of communication and customer engagement. If you click on the image below it should take you there.

I hope you enjoyed that.

Some of you may have recognised that there are fifty different combinations. The responses come from the fifty reasons why people buy that Geoff Ayling wrote in his book “Rapid Response Advertising.” If you haven’t seen these before check out a list here at Jay Conrad Levinson’s Guerrilla Marketing site. There are surely more than fifty but I believe that we can still boil them down to two areas: How does the purchase make me feel and what problem does it solve.

What does this mean for you as a business? Simple. If you want to grow your business you have to see your product or service as it is perceived through the eyes of your customer.

What do you think? Are there more than two basic reasons to buy?

I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

Thanks to U-g-g-b-o-y for the image