The Wife and I thought we would have ourselves a nice little Saturday
this weekend, so we got up, made a delicious breakfast, and took the
dog for a stroll. Everything was going swimmingly as we decided to
then dip our toe in the baby shopping waters and see what that world had
in store for us. We parked in the spots reserved for expectant mothers
(a nice perk), stepped across the threshold, and our lives will never
be the same.
I once attended a sales training course where the instructor taught
us that all buyers can be broken down into four categories: Power, Fame,
Safety, or Relationship. Without infringing on copyright laws of the
course it can be broken down as follows:
- Power buyers make purchases to strengthen their position in business or in the world at large.
- Fame buyers buy to make a splash and for ego driven purposes.
- Safety buyers will spend today to prevent a future wrong tomorrow.
- Relationship buyers purchase things because they trust the seller or to help the seller out.
Sure there are times where someone can be a combination of Power
& Fame, or Safety & Relationship but the concept is that if you
can figure out what box the buyer fits in, then you can target your
presentation and sales pitch accordingly. This is a little lesson that I
come back to in a variety of ways in both business and life since. The
guy that taught the class also did not wash his hands after using the
bathroom so take it for what it’s worth
This lesson smacked me in the face as the electric doors slid open to
the baby warehouse dew jour Saturday morning. The baby industry takes
the idea that their market new and expecting parents are all Safety
buyers to the Nth degree.
One way to argue this approach is that they are right in that a
parent’s priority is first and foremost the protection of their
offspring, and thus that is their purchasing focus as they consume
goods. The opposite argument would be that their approach is the
equivalent to profiteering on the naiveté of the clientele. As with
most things I would think that the answer lies somewhere in the middle,
but
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