5 Reasons People Aren’t Buying (And How to Fix It)

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0:33I can't wait to see you there. Do you believe in coincidences, specifically business coincidences? Do you ever wonder why people aren't buying? Well, I'm here to share with you three reasons why people aren't buying. But wait, I realize there's actually five reasons, and I'm going to get to that in a second. But before I do that, I want to make sure that you know at the end of this episode, you're going to get to know exactly what you need to get people to start buying. Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show, where today we're going to be focusing on getting sales and getting people to buy what it is you're selling.

1:03Welcome. We're going to hit the ground running. Okay. So I want to back up a little bit. It's a couple of weeks ago and I couldn't sleep. It's around 3.30 in the morning. And I was like, you know, I'm awake. I'm going to do the dang thing. I start my morning routine around four o 'clock and by 4.30, I am sitting at my desk and I am writing this podcast episode. So I'm just head down doing the dang thing, coming up with the three reasons why people aren't buying. So then it hits around 5.15 and I'm like, I'm done. I'm done with this podcast. I'm going to head to the gym. So I go to the gym, I work out, I get ready for the day, and then I do business coaching on the inside of Social Curator starting at 9 a.m.

1:37And would you not believe that at 9 a.m. I sit back and I get asked this same question from Amanda. Why am I not getting sales and how can I figure out why they're not coming through? So I want to be very clear. When I do business coaching on the inside of Social Curator, I don't know who's going to come on camera. I don't know what questions are going to be asked. Everything is coming out of the blue. So I'm asking myself, well, isn't this a little bit of a business coinkadeek that I sat at that same desk a few hours earlier and came up with the three reasons. I showed up and I was like, Amanda, I got the three reasons ready for you.

2:13So instead of sharing that bit of the coaching, I'm gonna share the three reasons why people are buying and then how this coaching session actually changed the three reasons into five. Prepare yourself. Okay, so I understand that in the session that I'm about to show you, I am gonna show you a clip of that. It was in the moment that I realized that sometimes when I am speaking about business, to many people, it sounds high level and esoteric. And I don't want that. I want us to know that the biggest and the best businesses are built on foundations. The same foundations done extraordinarily well.

2:47So reason number one, why people aren't buying. It is an unclear transformation. So people buy things for a desired outcome. Nobody wants to spend money to spend money. They want to say, I have a problem, I have a desire, and I want to become or have something different. We are buying a transformation. Now, if I, now I'm gonna use this example and I wanna go to three different business examples through this podcast so you can kind of find yourself in the middle and say, okay, I think I'm understanding this a little bit more. So if there's an unclear transformation and people want to buy something, they want to go to a conference so that they become a better person.

3:25They want to go to a dentist so they don't have stinky teeth. Okay, so if we were to use an example of a parenting coach, a parenting coach is feeling frustrated, or a parent who wants a parenting coach is frustrated, totally overwhelmed. That's who they are, but who do they want to come? They want to become somebody who's thoughtful and patient. That's why they would be investing in a parenting coach. Now, let's say that you're a veterinarian. Well, you have a sick pet, and what you want is a healthy pet. You're paying from the transformation from a sick pet to a healthy pet. Now, let's say you own a yoga studio and you're selling a yoga membership.

4:01Well, the people who you're selling to, well, they're unflexible, they're stressed, they feel very overwhelmed. And who do they actually want to be? They wanna be healed, they wanna experience peace, they wanna experience health. You're selling the transformation. If you are not sure what you're selling as the transformation, that's one of the reasons why people are probably not fine. Now, when people are unclear or uncertain about the transformation, they don't buy because they're like, I'm not sure that I'm going to get the thing that I want. Not because they don't think that you can give them what they want.

4:32They actually don't know exactly what it is you're selling. So if you don't have a clear transformation, I want you to pause and think real clear. What is it that somebody wants or who do they want to become after investing in my offer? Reason number two why people aren't buying. the outcome likelihood and the effort required. Okay, let me just break this down. People wanna know how hard is this gonna be? How much am I gonna have to work for it? Okay, so a reason why people might be buying is when people understand the transformation, when they say, oh, I'm currently this and I've become to that, the next thing we need to do is address how likely is this transformation and how much time or effort will it be?

5:14So when you're thinking about this in terms of business, the best case scenario, the best case scenario is a guaranteed outcome and very little effort. Okay, that's like the best business. If I could sell a magic pill that will get a guaranteed effort with little outcome, I'd be a billionaire, right? And so I need us right now to find out where are we on the likely outcome and effort spectrum. So let's go back to our examples. Let's say I'm a parenting coach and what I want to sell is my parenting coaching. Now, parents who are considering buying my offer, they have to, number one, believe they can change.

5:53And then number two, they have to think, okay, how likely is it that I can change? And how likely is it that I could be thoughtful and patient? Ooh, is that going to take a lot of work? We have to address those things. How likely can you become a better parent? I have to believe it. I have to show you and I have to tell you it's possible. Now, let's just say, if I don't believe that I could be a thoughtful and patient person as a parent, then a parenting coach is gonna have to come to me and they're gonna have to share things like testimonials to increase my belief, to share examples or stories of other people who didn't think that the outcome was likely and they weren't sure if they could actually become that person.

6:35And they wanna show the long-term benefits. They wanna say that when you invest in parenting coaching, it's not just helping yourself with a three-year-old, but a 13-year-old and a 30-year-old. And then you also, when you have an outcome that I believe the outcome is likely, I can become a better parent, but it's gonna take a lot of effort. In this type of situation, you wanna talk about an idealized future. So you're gonna use testimonials to shift my beliefs. You're gonna show the long-term benefits of investing and doing the time now because it pays dividends in the future. And then speaking of the future, the idealized future.

7:08Who do you want to be? Okay, so now let's apply the reason number two, why people aren't buying, right? How likely is this and how much effort is gonna be required? Let's apply it to a veterinarian. Now, if I take my sick pet to the vet, there's a likely outcome that the vet's gonna help me. Average likely outcome. And how much effort is it gonna take for me to take my pet to the vet? Average effort. So average outcome, average effort. Okay, if you have a business where you're putting something out there where it's average outcome, hey, there's a likelihood that you're going to get this outcome and it doesn't take too much work.

7:46It'll require you to do a little bit of work. Great. Then when we're dealing with this type of offer, we want to focus on the quality of the product or service. We want to know that of all the other vets that you can go to, we are going to offer quality care and quality service. And I want you to think about your business. If you have an average outcome, you have an average effort, you want to focus on the quality. You want to highlight the ease of what it is that you're selling, how professional, how simple, how effective it is to use your offer to buy from your business. And if possible, if I was this vet, if I had any awards, if I had won any sort of press, if I have reviews or testimonials, I'm also sharing that.

8:28So right now, reason number two why people aren't buying is how likely is this transformation and how much work is it going to be? So we went to the parenting coach and this is like, oh, it's a likely outcome. We believe you can change, but it's going to require a lot of work. When it's requiring a lot of work, we have to show testimonials. We have to show an idealized future. Now with the vet, we have an average likely outcome and an average effort. In this case, we want to highlight service, quality, ease, how much better you are than the competition and other people in the neighborhood. Now, let's use the example of a yoga membership.

9:04It is an average likely outcome. If you go into practice yoga, it's an ongoing practice. You will likely feel more calm. You will likely get progressed flexibility. And it's kind of an average to high effort. It's going to require a lot of people to be the consistent yoga member. Now, if that is the case, then what we want to do is we want to make sure that we are highlighting the idealized future. What are the benefits of putting forth this effort? How can we use community? How can we use other people within the business to validate and co-sign on their ideas? So reason number one, white people aren't buying.

9:44We went through and we talked about, well, we're not sure actually what we're getting. The unclear transformation. Reason number two why people aren't buying is what's the likely outcome? Like, am I really going to get this? And how hard is it going to be? And we went through ways that we can say, okay, if it's going to require a lot of effort and we have to talk about it, we have to sell it this way. We have to market this way. Now, the third reason why people aren't buying is the ideal client hasn't been identified. I actually heard Alex Hermose say that sometimes he has to niche slap people.

10:16Niche slap. Like, we got to know our niche. Like we got to know exactly who it is. You know, oftentimes when I'm doing consulting or if I'm speaking, people will tell me, oh, my ideal client is middle-aged men. Okay, well, what age is that? Oh, you know, middle age, like 38 to 58. And I'm like, that's a big spectrum. Because how you sell to a 38-year-old man and how you sell to a 58-year-old man are wildly different. People say, well, my niche is busy moms. Okay, well, busy moms of teenagers or busy moms of toddlers? Because how you're selling to them is entirely different. People say, oh, you know, I'm a recruiter.

10:56I help people who are looking for a job. Okay, cool. Are you helping people in C-suite executives find jobs or somebody who is looking for a cashier at the grocery store? Like, these are two wildly different sets of people. So we have to be very, very, very clear who we are selling for. Because the more specific you are with who you're selling for, the more likely you're going to get a transaction. Better yet, the clear the transformation, right? I help C-suite executives land in a Fortune 500 company. That's the clear transformation and the outcome likelihood. And we have a 90 % successful placement rate.

11:34Okay. With very little effort, turn over and we will optimize your resume for you and a specific niche for high-performing peak performers in the corporate world. Okay. When you have all of those things in alignment, you should be able to move sales, right? When we have a clear transformation, we know what it is you're buying. When we have a likely outcome and not so much effort. And when we have a very clear ideal client. So those are my three reasons. So as I'm sitting in this business coaching session with Amanda, guess what? She had all those three things. She should have been getting sales.

12:13but she wasn't. So with her permission, I'm going to be sharing a snippet of our business coaching session from Social Curator right about now, and then we're going to come back. Amanda, it's so good to see you. Hi. Oh my God, it's so good to see you too. I was like praying that I would go to talk to you. Well, that's what I wanted to ask you. My question is, why am I not getting sales and how can I figure out why they're not coming through? And I wrote down some stats just to give you like an overview of how the first quarter has gone. If you want to hear those. Yes, please. Okay. So in general average, my website is getting a thousand views per month and 412 visits.

12:54My weekly newsletter has a 50 % open rate. I got a hundred new followers last month on Instagram and my reels are getting anywhere from a thousand to 3000 views, but my sales have been zero and I don't understand like with all these eyeballs, like nobody wants anything like, and I have 50 products. So it's like, it's a wide range of really great stuff. So I'm just, do you have any insight of like, what could be causing this? What I need to look at, like ways to just figure out like why people are not clicking the purchase button. Okay. I hand to heaven this morning. I woke up very early and I started working on a future podcast.

13:34These are my notes. Like you think it'd be like very fancy. It's not, it's just a note card. And it said, this is why people aren't buying. I don't know if you could see it. This is why people aren't buying. I have like main points. It's like, I'm like freaking prepared for this. Okay. I was like sending you those vibes and you're like, yeah, I was like a shout out. That was like a divine alignment. Okay. So there's actually, when I heard this, I probably will going to go through and add another point to your question. But what I had written down is, and this goes back to one of the things that we just spoke up with Michelle, is we got to get very clear on the transformation.

14:07Now you're, and you're saying I sell products. I'm not really changing people's lives, but the transformation becomes the transformation. Who are they now? And who do they want to become? So who are they now, Amanda? And then who do they want to become? Who they are now is someone who's interested in miniatures, women in their forties that want to get into doll housing and have really cool, amazing designer doll houses, but don't know where to go for like designer approved products that are very cool and to purchase from someone who's passionate. So the way the business is set up is kind of like Etsy.

14:41So I'm Etsy and I own the mini mall. And then each of the girls have their own little shops in there. So it's like a collection of other miniature artisans and they have their own little shops with different products and things. And then I promote them and use my interior design skills and like showcase them and do lives and send out newsletters and all of that. So you have a marketplace for dollhouse goods? Yeah, strictly for dollhouse managers. And if I went to, actually, all right, let's bring this up. Can I have your URL? Yeah, so it'd be the main URL is the designer dollhouse, but there's the dollhouse mini mall.

15:19It goes directly. No, no, no, no, no, no. Uh-uh, uh-uh. actually let's go back let's go to instagram and what is your instagram so the dollhouse mini mall let's do that one this is the one that you're getting a thousand to three thousand okay great i land on your page i had come across from this adorable staircase or this month yeah so that staircase one is a great example that's something that i created and then i show the products and how people can use it in their own and that one was like pretty popular that's got like 35 there are 30 ,500 views yeah that's great shares but it shows the products and like links to it always put a thing at the end where like promotes the mini mall and it was like fun but it like shows like how to set it up this one we flip it and show two different ways like and this is in a bookcase.

16:14So it's like a way that someone could incorporate miniatures, which is good. If I wanted this staircase, I'm going to come up here. You can't buy that one. That's part of the tiny house, but you can buy the goodies in the staircase. Okay. So right here, you ask why people aren't buying. If you have to explain to me that it doesn't exist or it's part of a different collection, confusion is the number one reason why somebody won't buy. So I'm going to do what I would do if I saw it. I would come here and I'm like, I want that staircase. I want it for my books. I would come here and I'd be like, I'd probably go to shop mini mall.

16:54So I'm going to go to mini mall and okay. So I can read that it's going to be the house of my dreams. It's unique. And then I would probably go to, okay, I'd go to shop. This is, I'm just talking you through what I would do. And so it's like, okay, And I would say vendors, product types. Okay. And then I'd be like, I got one more search in me. This is what I do all the time. I'm an avid Instagram buyer. I want to know user journey. This is the stuff that I study. People think that I'm weird. I probably am. But I love understanding what are people looking for. So I would immediately go to, I'm trying to find where I can search.

17:34So there is a search on the main page. You can't explain it to me. Yeah. So you're literally, and this is what we do and did for Social Curator. We would watch people come in and they wouldn't know how to navigate the site. And it would break my heart. So as you're watching this and I'm like, okay, wait, I want to search for staircase. So I would come down and I'm telling you right now, if I did those three clicks from Instagram to the page, to the product type. I scrolled. I didn't immediately see what I was looking for. I'm now looking for a search button and there's no such button. I'm off the page.

18:19Right. I'm off the page. Right. So, and so, yeah, that's a hundred percent. You know, we're sitting here talking about transformation and I'm like, oh, I can just walk you through ease of flow. Now let's say I was very, very, very dedicated to, I was, Okay, I'm going to come back. And now I'm going to come back here. And now what I'm going to do is I'm going to shop for what was listed on Instagram as a staircase. So that's I don't have Yeah, because I don't sell it. But in the Instagram post, like I list the products and who made it. But I thought about just selling the staircase separate. But that's like part of the tiny house, which I'm not really selling either.

19:00So you think that's it? I mean, absolutely. Like, If your consumer, in the best case scenario, you get three clicks that somebody actually wants to be on a checkout page. Three clicks. Anything over three clicks, there is a drastic drop-off of what somebody will buy. And so I would just think I'm inept or I'm dumb because I can't find the thing that I'm actually looking for. And so I would 100 % if I were you, I think that the best Instagram accounts and the best merchant accounts will come here and have a link that says shop Instagram. When I go here, it's just a feed that pulls from Instagram or just like, okay, so then today, like whatever, let's just say, okay, so this tiny vase, right?

19:53This would go in into where I would be able to click. and it says like up here we go shop instagram i would click on that and then what i would see would be how i buy the vase making it easier is going to move product so i do have like if you go to furniture like those stories have a shoppable link but i wasn't sure how to do that to create an instagram store since i'm not like selling and distributing like the orders go directly to the girl so like if you were a seller it would go to you so like how do i i couldn't figure out the tech to link all the things. Okay. So real quick, when I go to Etsy and I buy three different items from three different stores, it's one transaction.

20:35Is that what you provide? Same. Yeah. Great. So then if like in a dream world, like if you really want to move product, then what you would do was you would say that the shop Instagram and you might, and this might be a total pain for you, but it would help with SEO. It would help with conversions. is at minimum. At minimum, I would create a blog post that's dedicated to that Instagram post where it is literally the same. I would upload the Instagram reel and then I would say link to every product. Because we want to buy what we see. And if you just make it easy for us to buy what we see, you will absolutely see your sales go up.

21:16Okay. So how do I link it to a product? Because when I do a reel, you can't do a link in it. No, you would say like available now in the unbroken in the mini mall. I don't know what the mini mall is, right? And so we have to assume that people on Instagram are seeing us for the first time. We just, you always have to play to the lowest common denominator. We always have to assume that people actually don't know what they're looking at because from my lips to God's ears, I hope you have a real go viral. But if your store is not set up for virality, you're gonna be buried under customer success tickets or DMs of people being like, how do I buy this?

21:49And you're like, of course you can go to the mini mall. And you're like, what the heck is the mini mall? Like, so what we need to do is we make it essentially, and forgive my language, we need to make it dumb proof. Yeah. So me, I am a dumb consumer. I'm looking, I'm like, I don't know like where to go. So here I would say link and profile. And I would 100%, like, I wouldn't have the vendor application here. I would put that on my website. I would have two links. One, it's shop mini mall. And the other one is shop Instagram. If your goal is to get people to buy, it's one of two directives. shop mini mall shop instagram if i clicked on instagram uh-huh i would be taken to very much similar to a page like a landing page like a landing page and on that landing page is just yep and it's just and it's just a post and i could scroll down i'm like oh okay here is just like this here i would have the screen grab of the vase here i would have the screen grab of the staircase here i would have and so i'm like oh great now i can click here i can buy my staircase I promise you.

22:52Okay. That will be. And, and, and, and a point that I want to go through my points and I want you to tell me if they're terrible or not, because they're going to help me. Okay. So number one was a transformation. I think you killed it. You know who they are and you know who they want to be. And then we just did a deep dive of your business. And I was like, you're making it real hard for people to buy. Okay. Yeah. You have to explain. And this is for anybody watching. Please, please, please, please ask somebody who does not know anything about your business to go to your website and watch what they do.

23:22And if you just say, oh, no, no, no, you have to go here, then you already know any explanation means you got to fix it. I've learned this the hard way. Okay, then the other reason, reason number two, why people might not be buying is how likely is the outcome and how much effort is required? In your case, Amanda, likely outcome, if they receive their package, very little effort, high dopamine, that's great. You're doing well. You know your transformation and you know how much effort is going to be required. People prefer less effort. Generally, if you're buying from Instagram, less effort is a good thing.

23:58Lastly, is an unclear ICP or you're not niche enough. I actually think you're very niche. You are going after women who want dollhouses. That's a very specific niche. So what I would go through and add based on this conversation was how easy is it for somebody to buy? Right. And then number two, for you, I would go back and have like a very like serious come to Jesus moment. You have four, you have less than 500 followers. Now, on average, on average, a website with lower ticket items, how much on average is an item for a miniature doll shop? I would say they range from$6 and some are up to 60.

24:41And last, during Christmas, those were high ticket things and they sold through somebody else's newsletter. that was promoting it, one of the shop vendors. Amazing. So we can say, we can say generally speaking, generally speaking, but a$20 price point on average. Right. So because that price point is rather low, there is a high likelihood of somebody being able to make a transaction on that website, which would be great. So then it leads me just by process of deduction that you are very clear of the transformation. You're very clear of your ICP. How likely is the result? 10 out of 10. How easy is that transformation when they get that doll piece?

25:1610 out of 10. So it leads me just by process of deduction, just by walking through your website. It is so hard to buy on your website. Okay. I would immediately go there. And this is for anybody who's watching. This applies to everybody's business. How easy is it for somebody to transact from social media to your sales page? Got it. Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah. Amanda, you're incredible. It's so good seeing you. and seeing how much your business is progressing and just how you're just staying consistent and doing the same thing. When we first connected, you did not have the marketplace. And so for you to evolve into the marketplace, I am so proud of you.