The Human ATM

By Michael Masterson

One of my partners owns a $270 million international publishing business. His responsibilities require him to travel all over the world. In the past 15 years, I have taken at least 50 trips with him. During that entire 15-year period, I have known him to have only one carry-on bag.

It is a ratty looking nylon thing, shapeless and worn at the edges. The zipper barely works and there is a tear forming at one of the corners. He stuffs his laptop inside, along with all the paperwork he can fit in it. Then he slings it over his shoulder and carries it around the world with him – in first-class cabins and five-star hotels in London and Paris and Madrid.

In my view, he desperately needs a new bag. But he doesn’t see it that way. As long as his pathetic little sack can transport his belongings, he will not buy another one. And if he doesn’t need one, he doesn’t want one.

I, on the other hand, want a new bag of some sort almost every time I walk into a luggage store. I want one in black leather, another in brown suede, another that has many compartments, another that is plain. Outside the room where I am typing right now is a wall that is literally lined with briefcases. There are 14 of them, in all shapes and sizes.

Clearly, I don’t need any more briefcases. Yet I am sure that the next time I walk into a luggage store I will want one.

The comparison between me and my partner illustrates the difference between wants and needs, and highlights something every budding business genius should know about selling: When you convince someone to buy your product when he needs it you will have a loyal customer. But if you can persuade him to buy a product from you every time he wants it, then you have a human ATM.

Question: If you were in the luggage business, who would you want as your customer? The guy who has one bag and really needs a new one? Or the guy who has umpteen bags and definitely doesn’t need any more?

It’s interesting. When I ask that question at seminars beforeI tell my little briefcase story about me and my partner, most people say they would rather have my partner as their customer. But when I ask the same question after telling the story, seminar attendees get it.

They understand that it’s not about what a customer needs; it’s about what he wants. And that if you cater to wants rather than needs, you will have a much better (and by that I mean richer and more long-lasting) relationship with him.

This is a very important lesson to learn.

Although I am clearly a habitual bag and briefcase buyer and have rationalized my penchant for this kind of incessant consumerism, I don’t buy bags and briefcases in a regular, rational way. If you charted my buying over the years, you would notice a pattern: periods of inactivity and then sudden buying sprees. Why do my buying habits fit this pattern?

I have done a good deal of thinking about this question, and I have come to the conclusion that there are three factors that stimulate my buying frenzies:

• Having the feeling that I have more money than I need.
  
  
• Being exposed to psychologically effective selling signals.
  
  
• The good feeling I get from buying.

Each of these reasons has important implications for the savvy businessperson.

Here is something very important to understand about this type of buying: Once the customer has decided that buying a certain type of product will give him the psychological lift he is looking for, the purchase itself will stimulate the desire to purchase again. The more he buys, therefore, the more willing he will be to buy again.

Most inexperienced businesspeople have a hard time grasping this concept. They figure that the more the customer buys, the less he’ll want to buy more. This fundamental mistake – which is based on confusing customers’ needs and wants – is the main reason why so many businesses start off well and then gradually deteriorate.

To satisfy a customer who has made a discretionary purchase, you must recognize that in buying one thing from you, he is stimulated and willing to buy another. If you don’t meet that need, some other business will. And if they are better at keeping him than you are, you will lose his business.

It’s all about the buying frenzy – that fascinating, nearly universal pattern of buying that takes place whenever a consumer equates psychological gratification with any sort of discretionary product.

If you want to develop super-profitable customers, you have to locate prospects who are capable of spending big, identify their core desires ... and then stimulate those core desires with your advertising so they will equate buying your product with a feeling of fulfillment.

Are you selling expensive locksets? In that case, you have to figure out what your target customer feels, thinks, and wants with respect to locks and doors. Does he worry about someone breaking into his house and stealing his things? If so, your advertising should stimulate his desire for security. Is he more concerned about having the nicest house in the neighborhood? If that’s what’s closest to his heart, design your advertising to appeal to his desire for prestige.

Is your customer a middle-aged man who wants to be attractive to younger women? Then create an ad that will make that car – or watch or cologne or cigarette – feel like an aphrodisiac.

The fastest way to turn an ordinary business into a cash machine is to redesign your sales and marketing strategy to focus on stimulating buying frenzies in your top customers.

Here’s how to do that:

1. Figure out why your best customers are buying your products. Study your most effective advertising campaigns and ask yourself, “What is the hidden promise here – the subtle, unspoken promise that is driving my best sales?” Based on that, you can design a follow-up series of offers that will commence the moment you receive your first order from a customer and continue with regularity thereafter until it wears itself out.
   
   
2. As long as your follow-up advertising campaign works, keep sending it (with modest changes) to your customers. Don’t assume that just because you are bored with it, they will be. Keep the main elements of the campaign (the tone of voice, the offer, the type of promise) the same.
   
   
3. Know that every industry has its own unique buying frenzy. How long it lasts, how much the customer will spend, and what kind of appeal will work best – these are all questions that vary from one type of business to another. However, in general, all frenzies are stimulated by the same three things:
   • New money to spend
   • Effective marketing that appeals to the right desires
   • The purchase itself; the positive feeling associated with buying the product