Although industrial buying (B2B) is expected to be a rational decision making sales process, based on cold facts, it is observed that “emotions” do influence this process. Here "Emotions" may not be as dominant as in case of consumer buying, but still dominant enough to give you pleasant (or unpleasant) surprises.

I have experienced there are seven unique “emotional needs” that drives industrial buying:

* Job Security: The buyer feels “safe” purchasing from you and your firm. Because he believes that you will do an adequate job, he won’t get fired or demoted.

* Career growth. The buyer feels that buying from you and your firm will give him career points or position him for higher responsibility/ promotion, either inside or outside the current firm.

* Personal success. The buyer takes pride in his work and feel that buying from you and your firm is the “right thing to do” based upon his own self-image as a good guy.

* Internal Relationships. The buyer likes the people he’s buying for and wants them to be happy.

* External Relationships. The buyer actually likes the sales person personally and therefore wants to please him. Or he hates the competitive sales person & wants to make him miserable.

* Personal inertia. The buyer sees buying as the path of least resistance so that buying from you quickly will let him return to whatever really interests him.

* Simple Greed. The buyer expects to receive some sort of personal benefit for buying from you.

So whenever there’s a buyer who’s separate from the actual user, he is subject to one or more of these emotional needs. Without which sales will not take place.

So next time when you meet a buyer, explore which emotional need/s you need to satisfy.