One concept that I find very useful is a concept I call “The Law of Buyer Progression”.
Why do I call this the law of buyer progression? Because this concept is very much like the laws of physics, and like the laws of physics there really is no way to go around the law of buyer progression, it happens no matter what.
The laws of physics help us understand how the physical world works. The Law of Buyer Progression helps us understand how individuals move through the process of becoming buyers. According to the Law, there are 5 specific stages that buyers move through before they make a purchase and certain things must happen at each stage to allow the buyer to transition to the next stage.
If these things don’t happen at each stage, then the buyer doesn’t transition and their path branches away from your product. In other words, you don’t make the sale.
There are 5 steps that your buyers will always go through. They may go through very quickly at times — if it is a longer sales process it may take longer — but they always go through each of the 5 steps in sequence or branch away and the sale is lost.
This helps provide a framework for understanding what it is that your sales system is designed to do.
So let’s look at the 5 stages.
The five stages are: suspect, prospect, investigator, evaluator, and buyer. Those are the 5 stages that an individual will go through on their way to becoming a buyer.
A Suspect is someone who you think might have a need for your product.
A Prospect is someone who meets your qualification criteria which means they actually do have a need for your product.
An Investigator is someone who is actively involved in the buying process. So they have decided to solve their problem, or fill their need, and they are scanning around and saying “where can I go to get this solution that I’m looking for.”
An Evaluator is someone who not only knows they have a need and have looked for a solution, but they have found your product. Evaluators are now sort of ‘trying on’ your solution. And that can be starting an actual trial if you are selling softwre or some product that works on a trial basis, or it can be a mental process where they are reading through your sales process and saying “I know I have a need, this looks like a solution, let me think about it and see if if fits what I want”
And finally a Buyer is someone who has actually purchased your product.
So, in the info products business, a Suspect might be someone who is searching on a particular keyword in Google. A Prospect might be someone who clicked on the ad you are running and they have opted in for a special report. An Investigator is someone who’s clicked on a link in a follow- up email and is now reading your sale letter. An Evaluator is reading testimonials and forming a mental picture of what it would be like to own your product, and a Buyer has paid for the product and is downloading it.
This may all seem a little academic to some, but it is really important when it comes to building an effective online sales system. It’s all about matching the mindset of your prospects.
What I’ve written here is just a bare overview, but I will be doing a free webinar next week called “The Mindset Matching Method” — it’s all about understanding the mindset of visitors to your online offers and meeting them where they are for higher conversions and more sales. Once you truly understand how to put The Mindset Matching Method to work in your business, you will find that your marketing is much more effective and profitable — not to mention easier and a lot more fun.
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This post is so helpful. Just signed up for the webinar
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