Four reasons people do not buy your product or service

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I was reading through some posts in our mentoring support forum the other day.   I saw a comment from Mike Harris.  (Mike was the CEO who launched First Direct banking, he went on to transform Mercury Telecoms, then created the EGG bank and started up and sold Garlik, the personal internet security firm).

For reference, here is Mike talking about value propositions at our recent EGL event

Mike Harris CEO First direct at EGL event

Insight from Mike Harris

In the forum post he made an observation about why corporate deals and negotiations can fail at the last hurdle.  Mike highlighted that when corporate deals fail this is usually for a number of reasons.

  1. The value proposition isn’t strong enough for the corporate
  2. The value proposition hasn’t been communicated effectively to or within the corporate
  3. They don’t believe you can deliver
  4. They don’t believe the economics

I was struck immediately by the parallels between this thinking and what EGL does for our clients.  Mike’s thinking can be converted to help you in your approach to creating products and services that customers want to buy.

How to convert this thinking to action in your business?

Mike’s comment does not only apply to corporate deals, it explains why people buy from you or not. For those of you thinking about your products and services and your position and value in the market, you can take each of these points and turn them into an insight about why people DO NOT buy from you.  You can translate this into the four reasons people do not buy from you.

  1. The value proposition isn’t strong enough for them ( your product or service does not solve their problem)
  2. The value proposition hasn’t been communicated effectively to them (they don’t think your product or service will solve their problem)
  3. They don’t believe you can deliver (not sure you have the ability or resources to solve their problem)
  4. They believe thay can get something else good enough for a lower price (someone else can solve their problem)

Have a think about a prospect or consumer that did not buy your product or service and identify which of these thoughts might have been true for them?  This should lead you to an action that will help you win the customer next time around.