bourgoin-why-we-buy git:20261002.46ac0a1A

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---
name: bourgoin-why-we-buy
description: "Use buyer stories, trigger events, jobs, and buyer psychology to design marketing messages and small growth tests when a product, offer, or campaign needs to resonate with real buyers."
---

# Why We Buy buyer psychology

Based on Katelyn Bourgoin's public method. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Katelyn Bourgoin.

## When to use

Use this skill when asked to improve positioning, offers, landing pages, ads, emails, acquisition campaigns, or product messaging by understanding why buyers begin looking and what makes them act. Start with evidence of actual buying behavior, especially a recent buyer story. Use the method to develop a focused experiment and message, rather than treating a psychological effect as a universal conversion trick. [S2]

Use a lighter version when the task provides reviews, call notes, survey replies, or sales conversations but no interview access. Label inferences as provisional and identify the buyer story needed to confirm them. If the request is purely a copy edit, apply only the relevant messaging checks; do not invent a research project. [S2][S4]

## Procedure

### 1. Set the outcome and identify the buyer worth studying

Define one concrete growth objective before generating ideas, such as more qualified demo requests, more visits from people entering the category, or fewer abandoned checkouts. Record the current measure if available so a later test can be judged against it. A broad goal such as "sell more" cannot tell the agent which buyer moment or channel to prioritize. [S2]

Recruit a best-fit buyer who recently paid, obtained meaningful value, and would happily choose the solution again. Recent purchasers remember more of the sequence that led to purchase. If the seller has no buyers yet, interview someone who recently purchased a competing solution or is actively trying to solve the same problem. Demographic fit alone does not make a person a useful informant. [S2][S3]

Prefer a one-to-one buying journey interview for depth. A prompt survey immediately after purchase and reviews can help locate patterns or recruit interviewees, but a buyer conversation is better for recovering the context and sequence of events. With only one story, generate testable hypotheses, not market-wide claims. [S2]

### 2. Reconstruct what happened before the purchase

Ask the buyer to walk backward from the purchase to the first moment they considered changing anything. Pin down the situation, what happened just before that moment, what they did next, what they searched for, whom they asked, and what they tried. Treat the trigger as a real event or struggling moment that moved the person into a buying journey, not an ad impression or a stage in the seller's funnel. [S2]

Ask about observed behavior rather than imagined behavior. Replace "Would you use this?" and "How much would you pay?" with questions about what the buyer recently did, spent, postponed, compared, or abandoned. Buyers know their problems and recent actions better than they know the product they would hypothetically want next year. [S3]

Keep a short evidence trail for each claim: buyer or source, approximate timing, action taken, and the words used. Separate direct evidence from the agent's interpretation. If notes only contain general opinions or predictions, mark the trigger and motivation as unknown and request a better buying story when possible. [S2][S3]

### 3. Extract four cornerstone insights

Write the **trigger** as a concrete before-and-after change in the buyer's life. Ask what moved them from tolerating the current situation to searching. Look for biological, situational, emotional, or social events, but only use a type if the story supports it. A trigger should suggest a moment when the seller could reach a similar buyer sooner. [S2]

Write the **job** as the progress the buyer wanted in that context, including functional, emotional, and social dimensions. Name the primary job in the buyer's terms before listing product features. A title, age, or industry label does not explain why that particular person acted at that particular time. [S2][S10]

List **pains with other solutions**, including the status quo, workarounds, spreadsheets, doing nothing, and competing products the buyer actually considered or tried. Do not restrict the competitive set to vendors in the same product category; the buyer may barely know those vendors exist. Record the friction that made a switch attractive and any friction that made the buyer hesitate. [S2][S9]

Name the **selfish desire**, meaning the personal improvement the buyer hoped to experience if the job went well. Probe beyond the official business outcome to confidence, relief, recognition, time, control, or another motive supported by the story. Do not assign an emotion just because it would make persuasive copy. [S2]

Distill the interview into one primary job and the four insights above. If several jobs appear, choose the one that best explains the actual purchase and keep the others as secondary context. This is the filter Bourgoin uses to turn an open-ended story into a focused offer and campaign. [S2]

### 4. Choose a psychological move that fits the evidence

Start with the buyer's problem and moment, then select a psychological principle to make the message easier to notice, believe, or act on. A principle is a hypothesis about how to present a real benefit. It cannot replace the buyer story or justify inventing pain, proof, scarcity, or a promised result. [S2][S6]

If a buyer already believes the premise behind the solution, reinforce that belief with relevant proof and examples. If adopting the solution would require them to admit a long-held belief was wrong, avoid attacking that belief; show what changed or offer a way to update their view without humiliation. Do not assume more facts alone will reverse an identity-linked objection. [S5]

If the story shows doubt about the provider, place credible, specific evidence near the point of decision: relevant outcomes, expertise, process details, or an honest limitation paired with how it is handled. Check whether the proof supports this buyer's job rather than merely making the brand look impressive. Attention, belief, and action each depend on credibility. [S6]

If the buyer described a concrete cost of staying stuck, state that pain vividly and promptly show a credible path to relief. Avoid fear for its own sake or a threat disproportionate to the real problem. When using curiosity in a subject line or opening, reveal the promised answer in the content; an unresolved information gap damages trust. [S7][S8]

Collect short, distinctive buyer phrases from interviews and reviews and consider them for headlines, product names, and calls to action. Preserve their meaning and verify that they represent the intended buyer segment. Compare candidate wording with actual buyer feedback when possible; do not assume the team's preferred phrase is the clearer one. [S4]

Check the final copy from the buyer's perspective. It should answer what changes for them, without assuming they follow the brand or know its category. Repetition of a useful core message is acceptable because most buyers see only a fraction of a brand's output; vary the wording while preserving the central promise. [S9]

### 5. Design a trigger test

Connect the objective to a specific target buyer and target moment. Name where that person is likely to seek information just after the trigger and who they trust there. Choose a channel that can plausibly reach them at that moment, not simply the channel the seller already uses most. [S2]

Build a test offer and message from the job, alternative pain, and personal desire. State the promise in terms of the progress the buyer wants and include a clear next action. If adding urgency, tie it to a genuine time-sensitive condition or useful moment, not a fabricated deadline. [S2]

Generate a few distinct ideas, then pick one to run first. For each candidate, specify the trigger it targets, channel and moment, message, offer, call to action, predicted behavior, success measure, and the smallest feasible implementation. A test should isolate a useful learning question rather than changing every element at once. [S2]

When presenting work to a team or client, lead with the buyer's sequence of events and the four cornerstone insights, then show how each test follows from that evidence. Invite objections and select one feasible test to run first. Report results against the original objective and update the buyer hypothesis if behavior differs from the story. [S2]

## Common failure checks

Reject personas that describe only who buyers are, research that asks only for product wishes, and campaigns that start from a fashionable bias or channel. Replace each with a recent buying sequence and a specific trigger, job, alternative pain, and personal desire. [S2][S3]

Reject copy that lists features before the buyer's situation, treats direct software rivals as the only alternatives, or assumes the audience is already paying attention. Put the buyer's current workaround and desired progress in view before the product explanation. [S2][S9]

Reject a curiosity hook that never resolves, pain language that exaggerates risk, and social proof unrelated to the intended buyer. These can win a click while weakening trust and purchase confidence. [S5][S6][S7][S8]

## Finished output

Deliver a compact buying story with its evidence and uncertainties; the four cornerstone insights and primary job; the selected psychological move with a reason; buyer-language message and proof; and one trigger test with channel, moment, offer, call to action, metric, and next learning question. Make clear which parts came from buyers and which parts are hypotheses. [S2][S4]

## Worked example: illustration

An invented bookkeeping service wants more discovery calls. A recent buyer says she began searching after missing a tax filing while juggling invoices in a spreadsheet. She tried a generic app, but still worried she would overlook deadlines. Her primary job is to keep the business compliant without spending evenings checking records; she also wants to feel in control when speaking with her accountant. These details are invented for illustration and should be replaced by a real buying story in a live task. [S2][S3]

The agent chooses the missed filing as the trigger, the spreadsheet and generic app as alternatives, and peace of mind as the personal desire. It drafts a message about recovering control after a missed deadline, backed by a concrete description of the service's review process, and offers a short records check. The test reaches owners who search for help after a late filing and measures qualified call bookings. The next interview asks whether that moment recurs among best-fit buyers. [S2][S6]

## Sources

1. [S1] Katelyn Bourgoin, Why We Buy newsletter, https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/why-we-buy-7054409240144203776
2. [S2] Katelyn Bourgoin, The Trigger Technique, https://learnwhywebuy.com/the-trigger-technique-turn-buyer-stories-into-smarter-marketing-campaigns/
3. [S3] Katelyn Bourgoin, Five buyer interview mistakes, https://www.linkedin.com/posts/katebour_i-did-300-customer-discovery-interviews-before-activity-7275865176548028416-L-UM
4. [S4] Katelyn Bourgoin, Buyer-isms, https://learnwhywebuy.com/buyer-isms/
5. [S5] Katelyn Bourgoin, Confirmation Bias, https://learnwhywebuy.com/confirmation-bias/
6. [S6] Katelyn Bourgoin, Credibility, https://learnwhywebuy.com/credibility/
7. [S7] Katelyn Bourgoin, Information Gaps, https://learnwhywebuy.com/information-gaps/
8. [S8] Katelyn Bourgoin, Approach and Avoidance Motivation, https://learnwhywebuy.com/approach-and-avoidance-motivation/
9. [S9] Katelyn Bourgoin, The Spotlight Effect, https://learnwhywebuy.com/the-spotlight-effect/
10. [S10] Strategyn, Turn your customer's Job-to-be-Done into innovative marketing ideas, https://strategyn.com/webinars/turn-your-customers-job-to-be-done-into-innovative-marketing-ideas/