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The Importance of Follow-Up - Part 4

There are also certain "basics of buying" that you should keep in mind in planning your selling program. Here are some of the reasons people will buy a product—or accept an idea:

The idea may let them do something they have wanted to do: cut operating costs, or make more profits, or compete against other lines or brands.

The idea may improve the individual's status in a desirable group. For example, the head of the purchasing department may feel that he will gain status among all the department heads in the company if he is the "sponsor" of a successful new idea.

There are some people who will buy an idea, unfortunately, because it will make someone else look bad. It gives the person accepting the idea a sense of satisfaction to know that he is "in on" something that someone else has missed. (This is not a recom­mendation that you encourage this type of feeling; only a state­ment of fact!)

An idea can be accepted because it helps to simplify some larger problem. Or because it enables some additional move to be made against a much larger problem.

And, of course, an idea will be accepted because it gets someone "off the hook" with his boss, or with the operating committee, or with anyone else who might have authority over him. This type of idea is usually the easy one to sell.

Related terms include business ideas and security.