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MRK370- Sales Management

The Psychology of Selling: Why People Buy

Overview
• Enumerate techniques for determining a customer’s needs
• List factors that influence the customer’s buying decision

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The Black Box

• It is describing the inability of the salesperson to see into
the mind of the consumer

Buyer’s Hidden
Sales Presentation Mental Process Sale/No Sale

Stimulus Black box Response

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Consumer Buying Decision Process

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The Three Classes of Buying Situations

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Reciprocity
• The Law of Reciprocity means to give and take mutually, to
return in kind or even in another kind or degree. The law of
reciprocity simply means that when someone gives something,
you feel an obligation to give back.

• Give items for free/sales

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Psychological Influences on Buying

• Needs and Wants: These motivations to buy are sometimes confused with
each other, but are the basic initiation in the purchase process
• Economic Needs: are the buyer’s need to purchase the most satisfying
product for the money
• Awareness of Needs:
A. Conscious Need Level: Buyers are fully aware of their needs
B. Preconscious Need Level: Buyers may not be fully aware of their
needs
C. Unconscious Need Level: Buyers do not understand why they buy the
product

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A. Conscious Need Level

• Buyer is fully aware of his/her need/want/desire

• Makes it clear to the seller that this is the
need/want/desire
• Example: walking into a car dealer looking for a mini-van,
because you have a family of five (need the space).

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B. Preconscious Need Level

• Buyer is not exactly aware of the need/want/desire
• May be hidden in the back of his or her mind
• Does not show the sales person that need/want/desire
• Salesperson has to search for that need/want/desire
• Example: 45 year old man looking for practical four door sedan.
Meets the salesperson, who finds that the man just seems like he
can get excited about the sedan and just does not want to make
the decision. Salesperson presents him a convertible and the
man’s emotional desires come out

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C. Unconscious Need Level

• Buyer does not know why he/she has the need/want/desire for the
product
• There may not be a logical need/want/desire for the product
• The need/want/desire for the product may be implanted by various
reasons:
– Friends have it
– Made to believe that they should have it
• Example: The desire to own a cell phone because everyone else has
one. May not really want/need one

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The Buyer’s Personality

• The idea of self-concept is the view of one’s self, and
that people will buy products that match their self-
concept
1. Real Self – People as they actually are
2. Self-Image – How people see themselves
3. Ideal Self – What people would like to be
4. Looking Glass Self – How people think others regard them

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Personality Types
• Thinker style
• Intuitor style
• Feeler style
• Senser style

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Thinker
• Is a direct, detailed-oriented person. Very precise sometimes
seen as fact oriented
• Effective communicator, deliberative, prudent, weighs alternative,
stabilizing objectives, rational, analytical, ect.
• Overcautious, overanalyzes, unemotional, nondynamic,
controlled, and controlling, overserious, and rigid

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Senser
• Action-oriented person. Deals with the world through the senses.
Very decisive and has a high energy level.
• Pragmatic, assertive, directional, results oriented, technically
skillful, objective, perfectionist, decisive, direct and down to earth,
action oriented.
• Impatient, doesn’t see long term, status seeking, self-involved,
acts first then thinks, lacks trust of others, nitpicking, impulsive,
does not delegate to others.

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Intuitor
• A knowledge future-oriented person. Innovator who likes to
abstract principles from a mass of material. Active in community
affairs by assisting policymaking, program development, ect.
• Original, imaginative, creative, broad-guaged, charismatic,
idealist, intellectual, tenacious, ideological, conceptual, involved.
• Unrealistic, fantasy-bound, scattered, devious, out of touch,
impractical, poor listener

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Feeler
• People oriented. Very sensitive to people’s needs. An emotional
person rooted in the past. Enjoys contact with people. Able to
read people very well.
• Spontaneous, persuasive, empathetic, grasps traditional values,
probing, introspective, draws out feelings of others, loyal actions
based on what has worked in the past.
• Impulsive, manipulative, overpersonalizes, sentimental,
postpoing, guilt-ridden, stirs up conflict, subjective.

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Perception
• Is the process by which a person selects, organizes, and
interprets information
• Selective exposure is the amount of the information the
consumer retains during a presentation
• Selective distortion is when what the buyer is being told conflicts
with previous beliefs or attitudes, and thus look for points to back
that previous attitudes up, ie: Self fulfilling prophecy
• Selective retention is when the buyer only remembers the
information that supports their attitudes or beliefs, and forget what
does not

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