How Do YOU Buy??

When we're young, things are pretty simple.  Yes/no, hot/cold, love/hate.  As we get older, things get more complex, and therefore, our minds tend to start thinking in more complex ways as well.  This is NOT always a good thing.  Sometimes, because our thinking is complex, we tend to miss the simple answers. 

Let's use selling any piece of network gear as an example.  Companies spend thousands upon thousands of dollars doing market studies, constructing complex web sites, training sales personnel, designing and manning flashy trade show booths, building ad campaigns, writing white papers, subscribing to analysts' reports, and paying for studies that "prove" that their gear is better, faster, and more feature rich than that of their competitor. 

But, for all of the hoopla, customer buying behavior is actually alot like yours and mine (think about the last house you bought for instance).  It boils down to three simple laws (and I don't mean the three laws that Isaac Asimov wrote about in I Robot.)

1. Do I need/want it?  (Does it solve a problem, give me a new capability or help me save a ton of money - o.k., do I just plain have the desire to have it because my competitor has it...)
2. Can I afford it?  (The BIG question.)
3. Does it work?  (And will you be there if something does go wrong to get it fixed?)

So maybe it's time we all went "back to the future", and looked for the simple answers.  They might prove to be the best ones after all.