by Jacques Werth

I got my first college degree in 1955, with a major in Industrial Sales.  They were calling it Scientific Selling back then, which is just another form of needs based selling.  The “science” was from a real scientific study of how most people make buying decisions.  The result of that study was a simple buying decision model, showing how a buyer goes through these 5 stages:  Attention, Interest, Desire, Conviction, and Action (AIDCA).

The original scientific study did not include anything about how to use the AIDCA buying decision model to create a selling process.  Nor did it suggest that this model could be used as a basis for manipulating people’s minds.  However, that is exactly how most salespeople began using it.

The Information Age and the Internet have made the alternative to needs based selling much more attractive.  Today, most top sales producers use some form of wants based selling.