What is The Psychology of Consumer Behaviour?

So Mike, in this video we want to explore The Psychology of Consumer Behavior and I know this is something you're really passionate about. You've invested a lot of time and you've done a lot of research and reading around it. So at a top level, tell me what the Psychology of Consumer Behaviour is all about. So, at a top level this is about understanding what makes an individual consumer unique? And the key bit there is the individual consumer. We both know from all the work we've done around the marketing piece that marketing is much more about groups, about cohorts of the demographic division and all the rest of that good stuff that we've both studied previously. That's fine from a marketing point of view and that makes sense. But when we get to sales and when we get to that one on one or one to small groups or one to a team, what we need to understand if we want to get it right, is what is it about this individual, this unique person? That's really at the heart of the Psychology of Consumer Behaviour, it's about understanding why would Customer A want and seek to do these things or avoid these things and what about Customer B? Now sometimes they'll end up with the same product mix or the same service pack but it would be for different reasons, and that's the key thing, it's understanding why for this person, why for that person and so on. Ok, so exploring that a little bit further, what would you say are the common mistakes people make when they start trying to focus on individuals rather than the wider group, what are the big pitfalls we need to avoid? The one that I say is the most interesting to observe is where the seller with the greatest intention of trying to understand the individual can't help themselves but project their values onto them. There's that phrase that I'm sure we're all familiar with, which is "treat people how you would want to be treat". That's part of the problem, it shouldn't be treat people how you want to be treat, it's treat people how they want to be treat. This is about that projection of values. It's not the easiest thing because of what values are, so if you think about what makes us up as a person there's identity, there's beliefs, values motivators. So to try and resist the temptation is the first thing, in fact it's the biggest piece of advice that I would ever give to a salesperson who's seriously contemplating that shift towards applying the Psychology of Consumer Behaviour. It is; appreciate what your values are, and then recognise that they are your values but don't necessarily project them onto somebody else, you might see them in somebody else and that's fine. Don't project them onto somebody else and don't expect to see them in somebody else. Accept, you are you, and they are them and you might have somethings in common but you might not and if you haven't that's fine.