Top Five Regrets Of The Buying

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Here’s a cheery thought. An Aussie palliative nurse that gave hospice care for those on their death beds made global headlines a while back. She published the list of her patients’ biggest regrets. Here’s the top five from her writings (The Top Five Regrets of the Dying – A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing);

  • I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
  • I wish I didn’t work so hard
  • I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings
  • I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
  • I wish that I had let myself be happier

Well. At least it did give me a Sales idea.

How about a slight re-wording of her book’s title?

The Top Five Regrets of the Buying – A Life Transformed by the Poorly Purchasing

I fancy that whether you sell from a massive menu of modules with perplexing permutations or the simplest of take-it-or-leave-it offers, or whichever end of the price spectrum in your marketplace you’re positioned, you can construct a similar list related to your buyers which expose the perils of choosing someone other than you.

T’would make a great cheeky workshop 45mins at your next sales meeting, don’t you think?

Also, a delightful slant emerges where you consider a ‘top five regrets of anyone having the problem that we uniquely resolve’.

Number One must surely be that most hated of Sales villains, preserving the status quo, aka, ‘do nothing about it’, ‘stick with incumbent’ or ‘fix it ourselves’.

Anyway, if you’re not the cheapest (and none of my clients ever have been) and you know why people pay that little bit extra for you, then that’s a sweet basis around which to craft your own ‘top five’. As a playful sample to help those synapses snap, pick from any of these ten;

  • I wish I hadn’t bought on price
  • I wish I’d read the terms and conditions myself
  • I wish we hadn’t tried to do so much of it all in-house
  • I wish that I’d have been more forceful with my boss
  • I wish I never allowed ‘project creep’
  • I wish I checked credentials deeper
  • I wish I’d have secured the get-out clause
  • I wish I focused on initial delivery better
  • I wish I’d looked into ongoing ‘maintenance’ issues more thoroughly
  • I wish we’d have changed sooner