Mine, mine, mine - The ConsumHERist

Posted on | April 30, 2009 |

by Delia Passi

Several weeks ago I wrote here about the influence of touch, and how handling a product or even the thought of ownership can influence our intentions to buy. At the time it was a concept to me, one that I believed to be true and could relate to loosely. It fit my perceptions.

Days later I got a call from my daughter, the young schoolteacher, who told me that she had ventured into a local auto dealership in search of a replacement for her car, which she found too expensive to maintain. She told me that she had identified the exact car she wanted to buy. The dealer had it in stock, she drove it and she was getting excited about closing the deal, but had called me to gain some confidence in her choice.

Her need to share her decision with me is consistent with the behaviors I talk about in my selling to women training, that women are more likely to talk about the products they are contemplating buying. What I was somewhat surprised by, however, was her resistance to changing her decision.

I had asked her if she had looked into the Car Buying Her Way program, which AutoNation Direct had created (using WomenCertified® call center agents), that would allow her to buy practically any car through their women friendly online portal. I certainly wanted her to at least try the program so I could validate the experience she was supposed to have.

To my surprise she gave me strong resistance, not because she thought the program wasn’t of use, but rather because she had made a mental commitment to buy this one car from this one dealer. She was already hooked, already sold, already convinced that this particular car would be hers, and it was not easy to dissuade her from following though.

Being her mother I prevailed, and she did end up buying an identical car through Car Buying Her Way, and saving a nice hunk of change. In the process, I got an education on just how firmly someone can latch onto a choice once they have imagined owning it - very powerful stuff.

So consider how you can enhance your sales and marketing effectiveness by applying the lesson I learned: Ownership can begin long before money changes hands.

Delia Passi, Founder of WomenCertified® and author of Winning the Toughest Customer: The Essential Guide to Selling to Women is a regular columnist on ReachingWomenDaily. Delia can be reached at delia@medelia.com.