Page 53 - Duct Tape Marketing

37Chapter 3: Seeing Your Product through Your Customers’ Eyes

Illogical, Irrational, and Real Reasons
People Buy What You Sell

When you can buy bread for under a dollar at the grocery store, why would
anyone pay nearly $5 to pick up a loaf at the out-of-the-way Italian bakery?

Why pay nearly double for a Lexus instead of a Toyota, when some models of
both are built on the same chassis with many of the same components?

For that matter, why would people seek cost estimates from three different
service providers and then choose the most expensive bid when all three
offer nearly the same proposed solution?

Why? Because people rarely buy what you think you are selling.

People don’t buy your product. They buy the promises, the hopes, or the sat-
isfaction that they believe your product will deliver.

They buy the $5 loaf of salt-crusted rosemary bread because it satisfies their
sense of worldliness and self-indulgence. They opt for the high-end sedan for
the feeling of prestige and luxury it delivers. They pay top price for legal,
advertising, or accounting services because they like having their name on a
prestigious client roster — or maybe they simply like or trust the attorneys,
advertisers, or CPAs more than they do the people who provided the lower
cost estimates.

People may choose to buy from your business over another simply because
you make them feel better when they walk through your door.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you can win your competitor’s customers
simply by matching features or price.

People decide to buy for all kinds of illogical reasons, and then they justify
and rationalize their purchases by pointing out product features, services, or
even the price tag. They buy because they see some intangible and often
impossible-to-define value that makes them believe the product is a fair trade
for the asking price. Often that value has to do with the simple fact that they
like the people they’re dealing with. Never underestimate the power of a per-
sonal relationship.