I don’t care which side you are on in the Brexit debate; we live in a democracy and you are entitled to your opinion.
But what does interest me
is the way the opposing factions are going about persuading us to vote ‘for’ or ‘against’ remaining in the EU.
It is widely known that some decisions are rational ‘head’ decisions and others emotive ‘heart’ ones. The first category is small and relatively inconsequential. The stakes are limited and the number of variables
low. We can rationalise in that case.
The second group are the big decisions in life: our partners, homes and even cars. In these cases there are far too many potential variables to appraise to make anything that approaches a rational decision so, instead, we use our instincts. Only after the event can we, sometimes,
rationalise why we came to make our choice.
The decision as to whether to stay in the EU or not is very definitely a heart and not a head decision, even if many of us would like to discuss aspects of it rationally. The Brexit campaign clearly knows this and are playing on it, very successfully. The Remain campaign appears
clueless about this, it would seem, and is presenting all the wrong arguments by relying on rationality as a result.
What does this have to do with you?
Well quite a lot. Not because of the EU, but because of the way your customers make decisions about who to buy from. Most of their decisions are ‘heart’ ones.
They may tell you it’s price or delivery or some other rational factor and, to be fair, about 20%
of the time it probably is. But most of the time – 4 times out of 5 - it isn’t. Buying decisions, even big ones, are driven by emotion.
And are often irrational.
Think about what that means for you and your marketing. And your pricing.
Try this exercise. Write down a list of your top 10 customers and then do a little survey. One question. Why do you buy from us rather than our
competitors?
Guess what? 9/10 rational answers (or maybe even 10). Now it isn’t a good idea to call your customers liars but that is what they are doing. Lying to you. Because they are serious business owners and make rational decisions. Except they don’t.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if you got to know your customers well enough to know why they actually buy from you. The answers will surprise you.
Noel Guilford