Sealing The Deal

If you want to close more sales, you need to understand the three phases of the customer buying cycle.

- Pieter Scholtz

A COMMON misconception is that business transactions are simple affairs: Customers express interest in something, they buy, and then they leave. This is a vast oversimplification of what is at work.

Business majors and entrepreneurs have spent decades plotting out and exploiting every step of a customer’s buying process to better attract and retain clients. There are three sequential steps that customers take when they show an interest in purchasing something. Each phase reflects a different stage of their mentality, meaning that the ideal strategy to exploit each phase will differ.

These three phases are awareness, interest, and purchase. Awareness is the phase where they first become aware of the product or service that you are offering. Interest reflects the period where they show that they might want to buy your product — a customer that enquires about specific details relating to what you sell would be a good example. Targeted sales pitches are usually made in this phase. Lastly, purchase is the period where they make their final evaluation and the decision to purchase from you.