I'm reading a best seller right now. It's by Dan Ariely, the scientist who discovered that we are not at all rational, and went on to prove it with a series of amazing experiments.
His studies proved that we decide relatively, not rationally. What does this mean?
It means when we decide on something, it's the things closest to us that we use to compare value. Basically, if we can't see something to compare to, we don't chase it. We just decide by looking around our immediate headspace for something – anything to compare to.
Example:
You have to buy a new pen today, and a new suit. You find a nice pen at $25, but suddenly realise that you saw the same one in Costco yesterday for $7 cheaper but it's a 15m drive away. Would you bother? Most people WOULD.
Later, you've found a svelte new suit. It's $225. You have your hand on your plastic when a fellow customer says he saw one in another store 15m away for $218? Would you chase it up, leaving this one on the rack? Most people wouldn't.
What was different? Why is it of value to drive 15m to save $7 on a pen, but not on a suit? Is $7 somehow different? Of course not!
Over our 20 years in biz there's one question people ask that hasn't changed. Not everyone asks it: only people who have attended a presentation from an MLM company selling water ionizers.
Theirs costs $5000, ours costs $650.
- Theirs alkalizes, so does ours.
- Theirs filters, ours filters better.
- Theirs attaches to the kitchen tap, so does ours.
- Theirs ionizes, so does ours.
- Theirs produces molecular hydrogen, so does ours.
The question we always get asked is:
Why is yours $650, and this one $5000?
We have the answer ready after all these years.
It's because they sell via MLM. MLM systems vendors recommend a whopping 800% margin. When we tell callers this, around about 90% of them buy our UltraStream.
However, 10% don't.
They are deciding relatively and their conclusion is based on their belief that our UltraStream can't be good at $650.. because it doesn't cost $5000!
That's the effect of relative decisionalising. It's exactly what Dan Ariely talked about. A dissociation from true comparative buying decisions.
Rather than investigate, their emotional charge – their missing out theory has kicked in. And it's still amazing to me that they choose to waste the cost of a holiday in Bali for the whole family just because, in their mnd, more expensive compared to less expensive means better.
What's very funny about this is that we also have people calling us up for a water filter. Now.. as you know, you can buy a Brita jug for less than $50, so to these folk, the reverse applies. We are just greedy. We are charging far too much for a water filter. A Brita will do the job.
Luckily for us, five minutes on the phone usually sets both parties right. The MLM buyer realises he's probably not going to make a new career and loads of passive income selling water ionizers to his best friends for $5000, no matter what the salesman told him. And the Brita buyer (usually your local big box store) realises there's far more nasties in their water than they realised, including many that a Brita type filter struggles to reduce.
In both cases, there's a sales pitch made that attempts to retain the prospective buyer long enough for his attention span to run out and force a purchase. (which is really not long these days!)
In the MLM's case, there's the offer of friendship, collaboration, support, and ease of selling. The high price is justified by the seller telling the buyer that a high price makes it worthwhile to sell.
(Think about that a minute. The seller is saying the buyer should pay $5000 so he can sell one for $5000 but probably make a couple of hundred bucks. Hmm.)
The low price is justified by the filter jug seller by making the decision easy. After all, it's only fifty bucks, right? (and keep buying little filters forever). So the big guy is keeping the buyer mesmerised by the claim of passive income, a way of paying for their expensive water ionizer. The cheap one is using the modern need for a bargain.
What do these strategies have in common?
Neither strategy directly compares functions of the product to other competitors' products. They shift the focus, giving you a new way – their way – of evaluating their product.
Why then, have we survived longer than any other water ionizer company in Australia? Because our trained alkaline specialists simply suggest to people that they compare products on product functions and features.
– We ask you what contaminants you hope to get rid of.
– We inform you about contaminants you may not know about that are in your water.
– We show you how we remove these contaminants and how long our UltraStream will continue to remove them, using independent laboratory results.
– We ask you to compare this with what you've been looking at.
Dead simple really. We bring you back from La La land to what actually matters: whether what we offer will equal or exceed the capabilities of what you've been looking at.
Take a look at the UltraStream.
It will either save your thousands of dollars and give you the peace of mind that it really does filter, alkalize, ionize and infuse hydrogen into your water far better, or perhaps, it will cost you more than a filter pitcher but give you and your family the purity of water you now know you can have.
Either way, you win.
We have alkaline experts available in Canada, Australia, USA, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, UK… just check the links on our website.