The Backseat Buyer

“$99 a month! Whoa that’s expensive.”

“You find? But you’re going to make a few hundred more per month just by using this tool.”

“Yeah, maybe, but still, I’m going to have to pay this amount every month.”

This is a conversation between reaction and reason, the emotion and the logic. Let’s see who’s going to win.

“See it says right here there are all these features. This is a great fit.”

“Bah, I don’t know. I don’t think I’m up for it. This app is too complicated.”

“You won’t need to use all those features! You can pick the ones you want.”

It’s not going well. These two are in a fight, and neither is moving an inch. Today, there won’t be a purchase. But in a few days, however, something will happen.

“I promised my client I’d ship that work. I’m never going to do it in time. Help!”

“…“

“How much was this again?”

“$99 a month. Last time you said it was too expensive and there were too many features.”

“If I don’t get this done for my client, I’m going to look bad.”

“…“

“I can always cancel my subscription later. But I probably won’t.”

“Maybe. It’s up to us really. We can do what we want.”

At this time, we see that emotion and the logic are sort of hard to separate. The roles are blurred. There’s going to be movement very soon.

“Done. This app did the job I tell you. That felt great. Man I’m so smart.”

“Happy? Now let’s put a reminder to cancel in a month.”

“You know what, I think this will be pretty handy. It’ll let me win more clients, I bet you.”

—

In this story, it doesn’t really matter that we draw a winner. Who was the one driving? Emotion, or reason? At the beginning, it looked like reason wanted to take the front seat, and emotion was having a fit in the back seat. When a purchase happens, however, it’s all over the place. Reaction pretends to use logic. Logic goes “whatever man”.

The loudest voice wins. Which voice is that? It’s neither reaction nor reason. It’s the voice that says “I just want to make some progress.”

Your job as a seller is to talk to the voice that’s ready for progress. Whether you’re trying to appeal to logic or emotion, before “progress” is the voice in charge, you’re trying to sell to a voice that’s trying to win an argument more than to be truly useful to the situation at hand.

Don’t sell to the backseat buyer. Sell when there’s a will for progress.