subject: Selling A Business: Understanding The Buyer Behavior [print this page] When you are ready to sell your business, then you have to face many obstacles and complications. During the entire process you have to deal many interested buyers.
But who is the original buyers, is really very tricky to predict. Many times our competitors use bogus buyers to estimate the price of our business. So, you need to understand what motivates buyers to purchase, and how you can influence the buying process to ensure that your business is on their list.
The psychology of the buying process has been widely studied, and no matter what size your business, knowledge of this process can help you become more successful.
Your task is to understand the process and match your marketing activities to the different stages of the process. This means that the customer will receive the right kind of contact at the right time.
A buyer follows these steps when buying business: -
Identifying a need: We need to advertise our business, as much as we can. This may be done by press coverage or online promotion.
Information Search: Buyer collects all necessary information regarding their business of interest. They will pay particular attention to press releases, exhibitions, advertising, editorial comment, industry seminars etc.
Evaluate Purchase options: Every buyer searches as much option he/she can. Everyone wants the best service for what they are paying off.
Purchase Decision: After considering all above points, buyer takes his/her final decision.
There are five categories of buyer"s basis on their behavior:
Emotive:Driven by impulse and emotion.
Offensive: Always trying to keep you on the back foot.
Cautious: Needs proof of claims and past evidence of success.
Appeaser: Says whatever you want to hear and hides negative thoughts and emotions from you.
Altruistic: Driven by their desire for fairness and concern for others.
Representation of business in market affects the mind of buyers and makes their minds in our favor. For this, you can even hire a broker or a marketing person, who very well knows how to sell. He must be capable to answer the queries of interested buyers. Need of broker is due to the fact; he can help us in legal affairs before and after selling of business.
Thus, by analyzing the behavior of buyer, we can add on to the probability of successful selling of our business.
