David Sandler’s search for knowledge about why and how people buy coincided with the Transactional Analysis (TA) movement in psychology. TA theory defines three ego states that influence our behavior—the Parent, the Adult, and the Child. Think of these ego states as internal tape recorders where childhood impressions—teachings and associated feelings—are stored.
The Parent contains recordings of what you saw your mother, father, and other authority figures do and what you heard them say during your first five years of life. Its recordings were unedited. Sometimes, Parent messages were critical, judgmental, and/or prejudicial.
The Adult acts much like a computer, processing data supplied by the Parent and by the Child, as well as data it collects. The Adult is logical, rational, and analytical. The Adult solves problems and reckons probability.
The Child is where many of our decisions originate—not just buying decisions, but all kinds of decisions. The Child is that little six-year-old in us who, feeling a particular emotion at a particular time, says, “I want this,” and “I want to do that.” Or perhaps: “I don’t want this,” and “I don’t want to do that.”
David Sandler recognized that it’s the prospect’s Child that starts the buying process.
The Parent isn’t going to judge whether a purchase is appropriate or not, and the Adult isn’t going to weigh the pluses and minuses of the purchase or the pros and cons of a particular vendor until the Child wants the product or service.
Why would the Child want a product or service? Psychologists suggest that people take action (including buying products and services) in order to have something, to know something, to be able to do something, or to be known for something. So if Melanie is selling consulting services to Randall, a CEO, she needs to be able to identify which of those (very different) desires is most likely to motivate Randall!
Does Randall want to have greater market share? Does he want to be able to do something to reward his team for a great quarter? Does he want to be known for an achievement that no one in his industry has ever pulled off? These are very different motivations. These desires can be initiated by greed, envy, curiosity, desire, fear, or any other feeling or emotion that resides within the Child. Until she identifies those feelings and emotions, Melanie is not in a position to make any kind of recommendation to Randall.
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