The Brain Audit — Why Customers Buy (And Why They Don’t) — Sean D’Souza

An Outstanding Analogy that makes his concept stick to your mind!

There are great books. Many of them! We read them, while reading them, we feel a spike in our intelligence levels. We implement many of them, we don’t implement some of them. Eventually as we ingest more and more great stuff, we tend to forget what we learnt from the many great books we read.

I have always heard of learning by analogy, to make concepts stick to your mind. Never thought it would be this powerful. The Brain Audit, gives an outstanding analogy, which would help the concepts he teaches, stick to your mind, for a long, long time after you have finished reading this one.

Notes

Why customers buy, are attributed to 7 things.
The great, great analogy, that the author gives is to remember these 7 things as 7 bags that you have to collect at the airport conveyor belt, and you don’t leave, unless you collect all your 7 bags! — Wow!

Bag 1 — Target Profile. Target profile, is just 1 person. Target audience is a groups of people based on similar demographics (Age for example). How would you then design a product or a service, for one customer? How would you describe that one customer of yours?

Bag 2 — The Problem. Never start with a solution. A brain is naturally inclined to be alert to problems, not a solution. So describe the problem first.

Now problems are way too many in your customers mind. How does the problem that you are describing, standout in your customers mind?

Bag 3- The Solution. After the problem is well described, bring out the solution. No jargon, just told simply and easy to understand.

Bag 4 — The Objections. Every customer will have an objection, before making a purchase. Bring out the objections out in the open. For example an Objection could be: ‘I tried this kind of a product before, it is way too expensive for me’

Know that Objections are caused due to three reasons:
1) Past Experiences
2) The Unknown
3) Perceptions — For example. ‘Yoga is not for me as it requires flexibility’. This is a perception, and a wrong one.

Brainstorm before talking to the customer on all the possible objections and how to overcome those objections. Bring it out in the open with your customer, even if they don’t talk about it. No point in hiding them.

Bag 5 — Testimonials. These are the opposites of Objections. The customer is always looking to have a second opinion on the product from another customer.

Testimonials shouldn’t be straightforward. For example: ‘This solution/product rocks’. Instead it should list out an Objection and then tell HOW that Objection was overcome.

Bag 6 — Risk Reversal. Lets face it. Not all products or solutions are going to solve the problem the customer has. This is where letting the customer know of a Risk Reversal is important. For example: ‘If you don’t like this newly launched Pizza, you can have one for free and need not pay for it’

Risks are of two kinds. Obvious risks and Hidden risks. List both kinds of risks upfront. When the Hidden risks are taken care of as part of Risk Reversal, the customer is more confident of buying.

Bag 7 — Uniqueness. You don’t search for your uniqueness. You invent it! Why is your businesss unique? It should have one and only one factor for which your business is known to be unique.

Asking this simple question, ‘What do you want to achieve for your customers with this product?’, should give you your uniqueness. Uniqueness doesn’t include quality of service or other generic things.

Now that you have collected all your 7 bags from the conveyor belt, you are set to go and make that sale to your customer!

The Brain Audit, a beautiful book written by Sean D’Souza!

https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Audit-Customers-They-Dont/dp/0473175045