What do Buyers Want?

What are buyers looking for in a Seller?

Well, let’s walk in a typical Buyer’s shoes for a moment. In fact, let’s walk in your shoes.

Reflect on your own experiences as a Buyer. Do you enjoy engaging with Sellers who seem more intent on meeting their need to make a sale than in genuinely helping you with your needs. You know the type, they’re ‘keen to understand your needs’, which is code for ‘I want to see what I can sell you’.

They can come across as selfish. Sounds harsh, but isn’t that so? They’re focused on their need first and you come second. I mean, if there was no chance of a sale would they be interested in you? Unlikely, because it’s your needs (what they can sell) that they’re interested in, more so than you.

How safe do you feel?

Now ask yourself, how safe do you feel in their company? How game are you to express your fears and concerns? For example, you’re not sure what you really need or how much you should spend. You have doubts. Are you confident that if you opened up to them that they’d give you unbiased advice and help you work through your fears? Or are you concerned they’ll take the opportunity to pitch to you and try and convince you their product is just what you need?

Of course the latter. Right? Fact is, you don’t trust them and so you don’t open up to them. And that’s the problem with the typical Buyer/Seller dynamic. There’s an absence of trust. You don’t seek out those Sellers. You don’t return their calls or answer their emails.

And if they’re sitting in front of you now, you just wish they’d leave.

What do you value?

Now contrast that with Sellers who have your best interests at heart, who engage with you as a person not as a role, and who take the trouble to really understand you, which means exploring what you want (value) not just what you need. And who’s only concern is to help you get that…whether they make a sale or not. It’s entirely about you not them. How inclined will you be to be influenced by them? A lot right?

Fact is, you appreciate unbiased advice. You value people that are concerned about you and who are intent on helping and understand problems and challenges and who help you figure out how to solve them. Note I said help. They don’t tell you. You don’t want to be told, you want to be empowered to help yourself.

People that do that are valuable to you. What are the chances of someone like that getting to see you? What are the chances you’ll return their phone calls? Reply to their emails? A lot.

So what do buyers want? They want help to buy. They don’t want to be sold.