You’ve likely heard the phrase “people don’t like being sold, but they love to buy” in some shape or form.
It’s not true.
What people like to do is solve their problem. You could even add, with as little expense and headache as possible.
Here is the idea expressed by Dale Carnegie in 1936 with his additional context. It’s from his book, How To Win Friends & Influence People
Thousands of salespeople are pounding the pavements today, tired, discouraged and underpaid. Why? Because they are always thinking only of what they want. They don’t realize that neither you nor I want to buy anything. If we did, we would go out and buy it. But both of us are eternally interested in solving our problems. And if salespeople can show us how their services or merchandise will help us solve our problems, they won’t need to sell us. We’ll buy. And customers like to feel that they are buying – not being sold.
The point – sales is about solving your customer’s problems.
- Yes – people hate being sold
- But this doesn’t mean people love to buy
- Rather, they want their problem solved (that’s WHY they’re buying)
- Help them solve their problem and everything changes