Future Promise: How Prospective Psychology Drives Our Buying Choices
By Jeff Shore
What motivates a buyer to make a purchase, current dissatisfaction is one reason but the other is a future promise of a better life. By understanding how emotions and prospective psychology influence our customer’s purchase decisions, we can gain valuable insights into our client’s mindset.
The Influence of Emotion on Purchase Decisions
As emotional beings, we often make purchase decisions based on our feelings rather than logical reasoning. Surprisingly, approximately 85% of our buying choices stem from our emotional core, with a mere 15% influenced by our rational thinking. However, it’s essential to recognize that our own emotions can sometimes elude our conscious awareness, exerting their control over our decision-making process. Emotions lack a verbal language to express themselves, but if they could, they would likely chant, “Want, want, want!” These primal impulses reside deep within us, compelling us to make certain purchase decisions.
Prospective Psychology and Future Anticipation
When making a purchase, we tend to evaluate the expected outcome and, more importantly, how we will feel in that future scenario. This aspect of decision-making psychology is often referred to as prospective psychology, which delves into our anticipation of the future and our emotional response to it. To illustrate this concept, let’s consider a scenario where you’re shopping for an item you truly desire—a pair of shoes, a new driver, a bottle of wine, or perhaps even a new car. As you gaze at the product, your mind and gut begin to react. You mentally simulate yourself using or owning the item, picturing how it would feel in your hands or the joy it would bring you. Based on these emotions, you make a decision.
Simulating Future Experiences
We can observe this process of future anticipation in action when watching others shop. Imagine accompanying someone to a store like Costco, where they pick up a sweatshirt from a stack and hold it against their shoulders. Despite no mirrors available to assess its appearance or fit, this person is mentally placing themselves in their future, asking themselves, “How would I feel if I wore this sweatshirt?” Such simulations help us gauge our emotional response to the prospective purchase and influence our final decision.
The Role of Salespeople in Shaping Future Memories
Understanding the power of prospective psychology in buying decisions highlights the mission and responsibility of salespeople. They play a vital role in assisting customers in envisioning their future selves and simulating that future reality. By enabling customers to try on their desired future, salespeople evoke the question, “How will I feel in that moment?” Acclaimed psychologist Daniel Kahneman suggests that we view our future in terms of anticipated memories. Thus, effective salespeople bring clarity to these anticipated memories, helping customers gain a clearer sense of what their future life could look and feel like.
Future Promise In Buying Decisions
The concept of Future Promise in buyer motivation unveils the profound influence of emotions and prospective psychology on our purchase decisions. By recognizing that our emotions often guide our buying behavior and that we anticipate future experiences based on how we will feel, we gain valuable insights into the customer’s mindset. Salespeople hold the responsibility of helping customers step into their future, enabling them to simulate and explore how they would feel when their problems are solved. So, in your interactions with customers, remember to assist them in envisioning their own future and provide them with a sense of the positive emotions they will experience once their desired outcome is achieved.
If you want to learn more about Future Promise and the role it plays in influencing customer behavior, order a copy of The 4:2 Formula 10th Anniversary Edition!
