The Neuroscience of Buying High-Dollar Services

Neuroscience provides insights into how people make decisions. People are less rational than they believe; this includes how they make complex purchase decisions. Expecting clients to process piles of information rationally slows, rather than speeds, the decision process. They strive to be logical, but processing gobs of often ambiguous or conflicting information from multiple vendors flies in the face of how humans make decisions.

By understanding how your client thinks, you can help them make better decisions.

It seems counter-intuitive that less information can drive faster, more confident decisions, but it’s true. People will make a pre-decision based on emotion, then cherry-pick supporting facts to create a logical justification to support it.

A growing body of research shows this is typical whenever we make decisions. Professor Rag Raghunathan of the University of Texas advises, “The earlier you make the emotional connection the better, because once the buyer has decided they like a particular option … their thinking falls in line with their emotions.” Raghunathan goes on to warn, “People who claim that emotions are not that important, who consider themselves to be really rational, are actually more prone to fall into this trap.”

This is not a failing; we’re all hard-wired this way. Research conducted by Antonio Damasio at the University of Southern California shows that people who lack emotions because of brain injuries often have difficulty making any decision at all.

Good decisions balance emotion and logic; both are required.

It’s ironic that by trying too hard to be rational, you make your job of solving problems for your clients harder. A long a list of features—even benefits—derails the decision process by causing your prospect to reconsider their emotional pre-decision.

The neuroscience of making decisions is one of the 3 Pillars for Becoming a Hero to Your Client While They Are Still a Prospect.

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