---
title: "Everyone Says Sales Are Hard—Why Is It So Hard? Understand Consumer Psychology and It's Not!"
description: "When companies, distributors, or their salespeople ask me about product sell-through, I ask them: Why would consumers buy your product? By putting ourselves in consumers' shoes, we see that choices are influenced by external factors like brand influence, advertising, promotions, recommendations, and experience. To drive sell-through, marketers must create influence through visual, auditory, and taste impacts, and build momentum from product quality, exposure, and activity."
author: "朱志明"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2017-04-10"
language: "en"
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# Everyone Says Sales Are Hard—Why Is It So Hard? Understand Consumer Psychology and It's Not!

> When companies, distributors, or their salespeople ask me about product sell-through, I ask them: Why would consumers buy your product? By putting ourselves in consumers' shoes, we see that choices are influenced by external factors like brand influence, advertising, promotions, recommendations, and experience. To drive sell-through, marketers must create influence through visual, auditory, and taste impacts, and build momentum from product quality, exposure, and activity.

Whenever companies, distributors, or their salespeople consult me about product sell-through issues, I ask them one question: Why would consumers buy your product?

Facing this question, we might as well put ourselves in their shoes and think about our own consumer psychology and behavior when buying a product. Why do we choose a particular brand?

Some say, "This product has brand influence." Yes, it has brand influence, and that influence affects you, making you choose it.

Some say, "Heavy advertising." Yes, you see ads everywhere, and they influence you to choose it.

Some say, "Promotions." Yes, promotions tempt you and influence your choice.

Some say, "Friend's recommendation." Yes, because of others' recommendations, your choice is influenced.

Some say, "I drank it at a dinner with friends and it tasted good." Yes, because you've experienced it, you think of it when consuming.

Some say, "I see everyone in my social circle drinking this wine, so I chose it."

Some say, "The product has a large display, nice packaging, looks cost-effective, and I was attracted to try it."

The above are external factors that influence us when consuming a product; there may be many more, but I won't list them all.

Think carefully: when we choose a product, isn't it because some external force influences us to choose it? The answer is definitely yes—there must be some forces influencing us.

No one chooses or consumes a product they've never consumed without a reason.

**1. Consumer psychology and behavior are easily influenced by what is seen, heard, and felt.**

Only by understanding consumer behavior and insight into consumer motivation can we do marketing well.

Through extensive research, we find that consumers are easily influenced by external environmental stimuli in their purchase decisions. In other words, as marketers, if we can discover the external factors that influence consumer purchase decisions and strengthen consumer awareness, we can stimulate consumer purchase decisions.

We categorize these external factors into three types: **visual influence, auditory influence, and taste influence.**

**1. Visual influence: the scene influence method.**

The scene influence method is about creating a sales atmosphere at the point of sale to stimulate consumers' visual nerves and arouse their desire to buy. For example, for baijiu, we need to strengthen the display effect at catering hotels and circulation terminals to stimulate target consumers' purchase desire.

In specific strategies, we believe we should **optimize resources, choose points artistically, and strike comprehensively.** Optimizing resources means thoroughly sorting and analyzing all terminals, not blindly carrying out comprehensive visualization. Pay attention to the art of point selection: concentrate resources on terminals with strong influence and radiation for key atmosphere creation. For the terminals we choose, we should follow the idea of comprehensive strike, systematically create a sales atmosphere, so that from the moment consumers enter the terminal, they are deeply attracted by our products and can't resist.

For hotel terminals, we emphasize that from the moment before entering the core hotel gate—including roadside billboards, storefront ads, entrance roll-up banners, lobby pillars, hotel private room tablecloths, chairs, menus, drink lists, bars, waitstaff, promotional hostesses, and even restrooms—the product's presence is everywhere. This is the power of sales atmosphere, the power of visual impact.

**2. Auditory influence: the word-of-mouth influence method.**

The word-of-mouth influence method means that when we consume something, we are easily influenced by the recommendation of the boss (shop assistant), the introduction of friends (acquaintances), or even face-to-face promotions by the manufacturer, which arouses consumers' desire to consume the product.

Visual influence is more about external sensory stimulation, while auditory influence factors are more about the charm of external language. The word-of-mouth influence method mainly grasps four parts: First, who influences to make consumers trust? Second, what is used to influence to make consumers interested? Third, how to influence them? Fourth, why do others influence others?

Who influences? It must be influential people, such as **shop owners, in-store waitstaff, consumer opinion leaders, relatives and friends, and professionals** (such as salespeople, promoters, people in the industry, etc.). What to use to influence? The product's differentiated selling points, the product's trust evidence, and the benefits the product brings to consumers. How to influence? Talk while experiencing, so consumers "see to believe, hear to doubt." Only when they hear, see, and feel it can the best effect be achieved.

Why do others influence others? Without benefits, there is no motivation or drive. The benefit may be spiritual, material, or a combination of both. For example, this wine is indeed good quality, can show one's personality, has a cover fee, has a commission, or this wine is related to me.

**3. Taste influence: the experience influence method.**

Wine is drunk up; this is an indisputable truth. Good taste is the real deal. No matter how much you boast about the wine, if consumers feel uncomfortable during or after drinking, such wine has no market.

We often see activities like free tasting, tasting sessions, and distillery tours, which are all marketing methods to increase interaction and experience with consumers. The purpose is for consumers to drink the wine, feel it's good, and trust it.

For baijiu companies, there are three ways to increase consumer experience:

> (1) Carry out free tasting activities at specific terminals, and do so quickly and intensively to form momentum.
>
> (2) Organize regular customers of terminals (catering, circulation), consumers in business communities and residential communities, and influential leaders in society who match the product's positioning, to conduct table-style tasting sessions or large tasting sessions, fully experiencing and feeling the product.
>
> (3) Core target consumers visit the baijiu brewing process, including brewing techniques and environment, to generate consumer desire and brand loyalty.
>
> If baijiu companies want to build sustainable core competitiveness, they should start with taste impulse factors, while also paying attention to consumers' visual impulse factors, discovering consumers' auditory impulse factors, and organically combining the three to truly stimulate consumers' enthusiasm and desire, achieving real brand growth.

**2. Sell-through power comes from influence.**

Influence is a force created by the product's static and dynamic potential energy.

In a market with severe product homogeneity, if a product is quietly submerged among many homogeneous products without any action or force to influence consumer consumption, will it have a chance to be consumed?

No influence, no consumption; no influence, no sell-through. Consumer choices are influenced. Therefore, to make products sell through, the essential thing is to create product influence. Sell-through power comes from influence; without influence, there is no sell-through or sales power.

What exactly is influence?

Influence is determined by the static and dynamic potential energy created by the product in the market and the scope radiated by that energy.

**Influence = (Static potential energy + Dynamic potential energy) / Promotion scope.**

**1. Static potential energy.**

We often see product visualization, displays, advertising, and other promotional methods in the market; these are called static promotion. The influence generated by this promotion method is defined as static potential energy.

**2. Dynamic potential energy.**

We often see opinion leader development, roadshows, tastings, experiences, sampling, lucky draws, buy-one-get-one, gold egg smashing, themed promotions, online interactions, and other promotional methods that directly interact with consumers; these are called dynamic promotion. The influence generated by this promotion method is defined as dynamic potential energy.

The most fundamental difference between static and dynamic potential energy is that static potential energy is the influence formed by one-way notification and publicity, while dynamic potential energy involves consumers participating and creating influence through consumption interaction.

**3. Promotion scope.**

Whether static or dynamic promotion, with relatively fixed resources, the scope, radius, or area of promotion is often more focused, the effect is more obvious, and the influence generated is greater. So, the stronger the potential energy and the more focused the scope, the stronger the influence driving product sell-through. Even unstoppable trends, halo effects, word-of-mouth effects, and herd effects may appear.

Sun Tzu said: "Thus, those skilled in battle seek victory through momentum, not relying on individuals." In the word "marketing," "营" (building) comes before "销" (selling). "营" means creating momentum; with sufficient momentum, selling becomes a matter of pushing the boat downstream.

**3. Three key elements determining product sell-through momentum: product itself, exposure rate, and activity level.**

Products or brands with true sales power are created in the market and drunk up by consumers. We see that the best-selling brands in many places are not the most well-known, but products or brands with high exposure and activity. Of course, the consumption scenarios created by the product itself also have many commendable points.

**1. Product itself.**

The strength of any energy is inseparable from the quality of the material itself. The sell-through momentum of a product is also inseparable from the product's own attributes, such as quality, packaging, selling points, cost-effectiveness, and consumption scenarios. The higher the product's own attributes, the greater the influence and the stronger the sell-through momentum created.

In fact, any product is a solution presented for a consumption scenario. How to create a consumption scenario solution through the product?

First, analyze the factors that truly work in the consumption scenario, then convert them into product language. For example, many people feel sleepy after taking cold medicine, affecting work during the day, and at night, coughing, sneezing, and runny nose affect sleep. So, Bai Jia Hei (Day and Night) cold medicine, based on the needs of the consumption scenario, contains acetaminophen, pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, and dextromethorphan hydrobromide in the daytime tablets, which have antipyretic, analgesic, vasoconstrictive, and antitussive effects, quickly eliminating major cold symptoms without drowsiness, allowing patients to work and study normally. The nighttime tablets add diphenhydramine hydrochloride, which has stronger antihistamine effects, further reducing various discomforts caused by colds and helping patients rest better.

Second, turn product language into popular consumption scenarios so that consumers involuntarily think of the product in certain consumption scenarios. For example, Bai Jia Hei: "Take the white tablet during the day, no drowsiness; take the black tablet at night, sleep well."

Finally, through popular consumption scenarios, present the product's selling points, wow points, value, and brand to consumers through promotion, publicity, experience, and interaction, forming communication and interaction, generating traffic and consumption.

**2. Exposure rate.**

Exposure rate is the frequency and time that can attract consumers' attention. The higher the frequency and the longer the time, the greater the impact on consumers.

There is a sales model called the AIDA model, where the first A (action) means attracting attention.

Only by first creating a consumption scenario to attract consumers' attention can we have the opportunity to generate interest and desire and achieve sales. To attract consumers' attention, either increase the exposure rate of the consumption scenario or make the scenario love at first sight.

Here, the consumption scenario is a vivid one that consumers can feel, either a static display scenario or a dynamic interactive scenario.

When consumers see a product's indoor and outdoor scenes at a hotel terminal are very impressive, and see others drinking this wine, they become interested in trying it—this is love at first sight in a consumption scenario. A consumer often eats at a hotel and sees a product's atmosphere at many terminals but doesn't become interested. One day, the product happens to hold a gold egg smashing event at a terminal, and he participates and experiences the product, feeling that the taste, quality, and price suit him, so he changes his future consumption choices.

Exposure rate is a gradual influence; love at first sight is an irresistible influence. In the era of homogeneity, for product sell-through, there is more gradual influence and less love at first sight.

**3. Activity level.**

The higher the product's activity, the stronger the sell-through awareness formed in consumers' minds. Consumers are easily influenced by highly active products when choosing. Simply put, let consumers see it often, hear it often, taste it, and constantly share and spread it.

How can we make consumers see, hear, and experience the product? Different companies have different resources and adopt different methods; different product types or price bands also have different core influence methods. But we must ensure that the product stands out in consumption places, that people recommend our product, that consumers participate in experiencing our product, that consumers spread our product, and that consumers feel our product is popular or popular in their social circles.

**Source: True Knowledge Society**

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