Pivotal Discomfort Factors And The Human Inertia Factor
By Jim Ackerman ©2006

 

Why do they say no, when you know, and they know, they should say yes?

Why  when all the pieces fall into place, when it s clear your product or service is perfect for your prospect, when you have skillfully laid out all the benefits and there is no legitimate barrier to the sale  why, when you both know buying from you is the right thing to do, does the prospect say no anyway? 

It has to do with the law of  HUMAN INERTIA!

You remember the law of inertia from high school physics. "An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. An object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force."

Well, humans are objects and are subject to the same law. Your prospects are staying at rest until acted upon by an outside force. 

Furthermore, that outside force  your sales, advertising and marketing efforts are "acting" on them, but the force has to be great enough to overcome the inertia. 

And another law of physics comes into play

"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

As soon as you apply your "outside force" of marketing, you widen the discomfort gap. The equal and opposite reaction is automatically self-generated by the prospect. As you apply the reasons to act, the prospect raises the reasons not too, in an effort to maintain the precarious, present equilibrium. 

Pivotal Discomfort Factors  

Why do people wait until April 15 to do their taxes? Because the discomfort of doing taxes feels greater than the discomfort of not. Until around April fool s day, when the pain of not acting mounts exponentially each moment on the way to April 15. Finally, the discomfort of action is dwarfed by the discomfort of "maintaining current orbit."

I call these forces "Pivotal Discomfort Factors." 

As the "tax day" example demonstrates, there are two kinds of "Pivotal Discomfort Factors" or PDFs, and as you may have guessed, they oppose each other.

The "Move Now" PDF is the problem, challenge, discomfort, fear or frustration that the prospect wants to eliminate. It s the unfulfilled human need or hot button, which, if properly touched, will cause your prospect to believe he or she has got to have your product or service.

I m losing my hair. So I considered the use of Rogaine and other hair restoration products. I even sent for a FREE trial of one such "system."

But I never purchased Rogaine and I returned the product I did buy. The reasons constitute

The "Hold On" PDFs. 

The Hold On PDF is the problem, challenge, discomfort, fear or frustration that keeps prospects from acting EVEN THOUGH they believe your product or service is in their best interest and may solve their problem.

While I believe Rogaine may restore my hair, my "hold on" PDF is, I just don t want to be trapped using a drug for the rest of my life. 

The other "system" I tried was all natural. But when the package arrived, the daily regimen it required was too tedious and time consuming. My "hold on" PDF was that I d never follow through. So, I returned the product.

In both cases I believed the products would work  I believed they would solve the problem. But in each case there was something that prevented me from taking action anyway. A price I simply wasn t willing to pay. (And the price wasn t dollars. It was something else.)

Dealing with Move Now PDFs

Most of everything we do in marketing is designed to address the "Move Now" PDF. That s natural. If people don t "move now," we don t get a sale. We want them to move so we give them all the reasons they should.

Whenever we sell, we talk about the "what you gets" of buying our products or services

• making more money -- the implication is, you don t have enough right now
• taking back control of your company -- something I assume you don t now possess
• becoming a highly respected wiz in your industry or your community -- you re just an also-ran at the moment
• saving money -- you re currently flushing it away
• being able to take a vacation whenever you want -- you re stuck with the business controlling you
• more profits -- you don t have enough now

All those benefits are good things. Who wouldn t want them? 

Note that the wording of each benefit is broken up into two parts. The first part is the benefit statement. The second part is seldom, if ever, said in sales presentations or marketing copy, but that s the part that addresses the prospect s Pivotal Discomfort Factors. What if we turn those statements around and talk about the prospect s discomforts, before we deliver the benefit

• Money isn t everything, but do you have what you want and need? This program will help you make more money.
  
• Think about how you feel every time you see the sales curve dips or you re bombarded by salesmen all trying to get at your money. This program will help you take back control of your company.
  
• Tired of everybody else in your industry showing you up at the annual meetings? This product can help you become an industry champion, virtually overnight. 
  
• "My 12 year-old called us "the dull family" because I was so married to the business, we could never go on a vacation. Through this program I doubled the business and was able to take a 3-week trek to the Bahamas with the whole family. He won t call us the dull family ever again."
  
• It s gotta be frustrating to have the business controlling your life. And your family is missing you. This product will put you back in control of your own destiny.
  
• At the end of the day, do you take home enough dollars to provide your family with the important things you want for them? If you need more profits, this service can help you get  em.

If those statements helped you "feel the pain," you just had an experience with "Move-Now" Pivotal Discomfort Factors. You should be saying to yourself something like, "Man, if that program, product or service can really help me do those things, maybe I should check it out a little closer."

And just about when you begin to think that way, what happens?

Right  the "Hold On" Pivotal Discomfort Factors begin to kick in.

These "wait a minute" feelings literally do "kick in." They re automatic; sub-conscious. You may not even be able to identify the true discomfort. 

Ask yourself, "What Hold On PDF(s) are keeping my prospects from giving in to their Move Now PDF(s) and all the benefits I have to offer?"

There's the

• It can't be that easy PDF
• What if it s a waste of money PDF
• What if it doesn t work PDF
• It s too expensive PDF
• It s too time consuming PDF
• I m too busy PDF
• And perhaps as important as any  the "What if I can find something as good or better for less money," PDF.

No matter how attractive the Move Now PDFs, the Hold Ons are working hard to counterbalance them  to keep prospects from taking action. 

You have probably tried countering the Hold Ons. You supply success stories. You give statistics along with the stories. Perhaps you offer escape clauses and guarantees to eliminate risk. In short, you do everything in your power to so thoroughly unbalance the inertia scales in favor of action that the prospect would be nuts not to buy. 

But many times they still say no. That s because you have been dealing with the Hold On PDFs like they re objections. They re not. They are below the surface, sub-conscious concerns that usually have more to do with the prospect s lack of belief in himself than lack of belief in you or your product. 

Remember why I sent back the hair restoration program? Not because I didn t believe it would work  but because I didn t believe I would work. I didn t believe I would follow through.

Combatting Hold On PDF

How do you overcome these deeply rooted, emotional, "alive-to-the-prospect" Hold On PDF demons?

1. Address the issue head on. Something like, "I know you re feeling a real sense of conflict right about now. Let me be candid and tell you that my experience shows most of my prospects experience feelings of  (fill in the blanks for your product or service). 

Sometimes just getting the prospect to identify the real cause of the discomfort will diminish it to the point he or she can dismiss it.

2. Get the prospect to detail the source of the discomfort in a fairly elaborate description. In doing so, the prospect will be able to more clearly see that the discomfort is primarily psychological and unfounded.

3. Ask the prospect what the two of you can do together to lay these PDFs aside so you can get on with the business of helping the prospect realize the benefits of the Move Now PDFs. By asking this question, the prospect will  often tell you.

4. Detail the discomfort for the prospect, but do it in a worst-case exaggeration. Make it far worse than it could ever be for your prospect. This does have to be done with some skill. It must be outrageous, but it must also touch on an element of truth. The prospect must be able to see him or herself in the exaggeration, but realize that they "would never be as bad as that." A real case history in this situation is best, as long as the outcome illustrates a positive result for the client or customer, despite his or her failures or short-comings.

For example, I could tell the story of the store owner who took eight months to get through my marketing coaching program instead of the regular four; who was lucky to spend an hour a week instead of the required hour a day; who only did a fraction of the assignments and the ones he did were poorly executed; who really didn t live up to the spirit of the program; who did almost nothing  yet at the end of the program had increased sales by 19% and had recouped his investment more than the promised four times over and was thrilled with the program, even while admitting his own lack effort.

If I ve done my job right, you re saying to yourself, "Boy, that guy was a real bozo. I might be bad, but I wouldn t be that bad. If that guy could make it work, just maybe I could make it work too."

5. When people are dealing with the "what if there s something better for less" PDF, try acknowledging that could be true but that you re unaware of anything. Then give them a special kind of "risk reversal." Promise that, if they find something better or comparable for less money, within a given time frame, you ll refund their money or refund the difference, or pay for them to get the alternative.

6. Try a "pattern interrupt." A pattern interrupt is basically a "shock treatment" designed to jolt somebody out of their stinkin  thinkin . 

Some ways to do that? Ask if things remain the same, what happens and can you live with it?

You might even question their "manhood," after you have detailed the Hold On PDFs.

"Well Gerry, you ve said you believe in my program, but you don t believe in yourself. Are you willing to go on not believing in yourself or are you going to do something about it? And if you intend to do something about it, when? Are you going to wait for someday, or are you going to seize the day and start the change process now, when you have the opportunity of a lifetime staring right in the face?"

Pattern interrupts are harsh, in the sense that  they re unexpected, candid and blunt.

Deal with all the PDFs before you go out to sell

Whether you re dealing with prospects face-to-face or through marketing and advertising programs, you must address the PDFs. 

Identify the Move Now and Hold On Pivotal Discomfort Factors for your products or services and come up with language that will strengthen the Move Nows and counter the Hold Ons. Then begin to use the language in your face-to-face or telephone sales messages, tracking their impact. Once you find things that work, convert them to your marketing copy and watch the tough prospects drop like flies as your sales curve soars.

 

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