The punchline of today’s story is that your clients say one thing and mean another. Surprise! Those of you who sell or provide B2B products or services know that prospects present themselves to Freelancers and sales reps as dispassionate decision-makers who demand value and aim to minimize costs as they operate in the harsh realities of tech company lay-offs, bank failures, inflation, war and the lingering aftershocks of the coronavirus shutdown. Oh, and they’d also like the products or services they buy to save them time, because time is money.

However Ron Friedman, PhD, a psychologist who studies human motivation, surveyed 2,128 office workers in the U.S, U.K, France, Germany, Spain and Italy discovered some additional, unspoken, motivations of office workers who purchase B2B products or services.

Friedman and his team found that B2B customers favor interactions that cater to certain psychological needs, even when satisfying those needs costs the company more money and time. The findings suggest that what humans really want are choice (control, power), meaningful connections with others (relatedness) and opportunities to grow skills that are important to them (mastery).

Let’s dive in to get more insights and understand how you can leverage these unspoken motivations as you and your prospective clients discuss your products and services.

Choice trumps problem-solving

When Friedman’s study subjects were asked if they prefer to discuss and potentially buy from a B2B services provider a single solution that can solve their problem or help achieve their goal, or be offered two or more potential solutions that they must evaluate and then select their preferred remedy, the ability to choose won out.

When a prospect is presented with a single, presumably effective, solution that’s expected to resolve the goal or problem at issue, time is automatically saved. Still, 58% of Friedman’s study subjects preferred the opportunity to choose and, it seems, the power that came with it. The ability to choose was considered desirable, even when going through the selection process did not provide additional benefits, e.g., better results or money and time saved.

Connection overrules time

Most prospects didn’t mind that extra time was spent to review and evaluate the available options that guide their choice of a solution. Although waiting for a human being to reply to an email or pick up the phone might require twice the time and provided no other benefits (in either case, participants were assured their problem would be solved), waiting twice as long to speak with a human being was preferred by nearly three-quarters of participants (74%).

Furthermore, respondents much prefer to know who they’re doing business with. When asked to rate what they consider to be satisfactory or unsatisfactory customer service delivered by the sales reps and other service providers they interact with, study subjects rated just 33% of vendors they didn’t really know as providing “satisfactory” service, but 70% of vendors who received “satisfactory” ratings were known personally by the respondents. In other words, the experience of close connection and impressions of good service are linked.

Experiences that expand horizons

Human beings enjoy learning new skills and being exposed to new experiences. It makes life interesting and expands our horizons. It’s good for self-esteem. Keep that affinity for learning in mind as you discuss your product or service with prospects as you simultaneously show respect for their expertise.

The process of acknowledging the prospect’s skill set, I.e., mastery, and providing a learning opportunity starts when you offer the choice of potential solutions to the problem or pathways to achieving the goal, as noted above.

When you are hired to work on a project (another empowering choice that the prospect, now a client, gets to make) and carrying out the client’s preferred solution, you can as well satisfy the (unspoken) desire to learn by giving him/her an inside look at how you apply the solution and make it work. For your client, this can appeal to the desire to keep his/her skills up to date in a rapidly changing economy and workplace.

What might these findings tell us about the rising popularity of marketing automation? Freelancers and other business owners have used the software to facilitate engagement and bring in point-of- service online sales. New and returning clients have gravitated to contactless interactions where, other than choice, psychological motives are not addressed.

Since 70% of Friedman’s survey respondents feel positively about customer service interactions when they are handled by someone they know, that does leave 30% who are OK working with someone they don’t know (contactless engagement). Also, the power of choice remains, which is an important factor for most.

Finally, prospects who explore your products and services on your website or social media platforms always have the option to contact you (or your team) and initiate direct conversations when choice, connection that may lead to relatedness and learning opportunities that expand mastery can take place.

Thanks for reading and welcome spring!

Kim

Image: © Netflix/ Mark Bourdillon. L-R Matt Lucas, Prue Leith, Paul Hollywood and Noel Fielding of The Great British Baking Show illustrate our unspoken desires.