Weigh for Self-Expressive & Other-Expressive

In face-to-face selling, there are so many customer factors to assess all at once that it’s handy to have shortcuts.
     A time-tested one is Columbia University psychology professor E. Tory Higgin’s prevention-focused versus promotion-focused concept. Prevention-focused shoppers put top priority on products and services which help them avoid losing what they have now. Promotion-focused shoppers put top priority on products and services which help them gain more than they have now.
     Northwestern University and Stanford University research finds a useful refinement of the prevention-focused/promotion-focused concept: For each customer, we are to weigh the degree of self-expressive and other-expressive tendencies. Then, as necessary to achieve our objectives, we influence the relative balance.

• Self-expressive shoppers start by looking for high-priced items with enhanced features. When they succeed in making such a purchase, they’ll become emotionally involved with it. If they aren’t able to find—or afford—what they’re first seeking, they tend to go to the other extreme. Their objective is to save money and other resources on this particular purchase in order to splurge resources on the next. They’re open to taking risks. They are promotion-focused.
• Other-expressive shoppers prefer to avoid risk, so gravitate toward the compromise option in quality and prices of purchases. They are cautious in expressing their emotional product preferences to salespeople and even to themselves. They are prevention-focused.
• Retailers can move shoppers toward the self-expressive side by proper use of advertising and signage. Highlight slogans like, “What have you done for yourself today?” Bright décor, product, package, and signage colors in unexpected hues also bring out the self-expressive.
• Asking a shopper what others are likely to think of the purchase being considered will pull the shopper in the other-expressive direction. This finding has implications for the situation where the retailer would like the shopper to purchase an extravagant gift for someone else. The best sequence is to encourage the shopper first to think about what they themselves like, then think about how others would look at the shopper if they made that purchase. On the other hand, if we believe it best for the shopper to proceed cautiously in gift shopping, suggest that the shopper consider how the preferences they’re expressing actually came from others.

     This self-expressive/other-expressive balancing is related to a consumer psychology concept called self-monitoring.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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Sell Either Protection or Promotion
Broaden Target Markets Beyond Yourself