The Buyer's Cycle

Have you ever sat in on a presentation or session, where soomething jumps out at you and you say to yourself, “wow – that is so simple and obvious, but yet I never would have visualized it that way.” This post is a result of that type of experience. The concept has to do with the Buyer’s Cycle, or the cycle we all go through when making any type of purchase.

Picture a clock, starting at 12 and moving around clockwise. Here are the phases buyers go through on that clock:

1: Needs (opportunities or challenges) arise, whether created by themselves or a company

2: Establish criteria by which the purchase will be made (e.g. cost, quality, the way it makes me feel, etc.)

3: Evaluate options (i.e. consider which companies, products, or services can meet the criteria to address the need)

4: Concerns/Risks: address the concerns and risks of any decision compared with doing nothing (i.e. once I make the decision, I’m committed to it – what might I miss out on or what if I’m wrong type questions)

5: Make decision

6: Implement decision (i.e. buy or act)

7: Evaluate decision over time (e.g. did I make the right decision? did it address the need as I thought it would? did I use the right criteria? did I like the people I did business with? etc.)

8: The process starts over again (just with more information this time from the evaluation)

The beauty of this buyer’s cycle isn’t in the steps though. Here is what was brought to my attention – when selling or working with prospective buyers, you need to know which step or phase they are in. If the buyer doesn’t know they have a need yet, you need to create the demand; you can’t jump to the “make the decision” phase. If the buyer has already evaluated options or has made the decision (and just not implemented it yet) and you weren’t one of the options, you are late to the party and need to move quickly to “interrupt” their process to consider your option. There are a variety of scenarios like those. The point is this – you need to know which phase the buyer is in and match your approach to meet that phase. Doing so will greatly increase your success rate with prospective buyers.