Practical Sales Training™ > How People Work > The Wont Happen To Me Effect

What is it?

Sometimes buyers won’t buy because they don’t believe something will happen to them and they are happy to take the “risk”.

Why does it work?

It’s understandable that you might think something is unlikely to happen to you, but as sellers it’s our job to make our buyers aware of the hidden choices and hidden costs that they may face through inaction and lack of preparedness.

How can you use it?

You need to get your buyer to see the situation differently and think about it differently. There are 5 main ways to do it:

Reframe to preparedness
Remind the consequences of not being prepared for the thing. (A hidden choice)
Compare to other “preparedness” purchases using equivalence
Calculate the invisible costs of lack of preparation.
Use examples of “people like them” that have bought and why.

Hypothetical Example:

An IT company offers cybersecurity services to small businesses. A prospect says, “We don’t really need cybersecurity – no one’s going to hack a small business like ours.”

The salesperson reframes the conversation:

Preparedness: “Cybercrime is often random – like locking your car door, you don’t wait until you’re robbed to take action.”
Consequences: “A single ransomware attack could lock your files for days and cost thousands in lost revenue.”
Equivalence: “You already pay for insurance on your office, right? Cybersecurity is like insurance for your data.”
Invisible Costs: “Even one day of downtime could cost you more than a year of our service.”
Examples: “Several businesses like yours signed up after their competitors were hit – they realised prevention is cheaper than disaster recovery.”

By reframing the risk, the buyer begins to see the cost of inaction outweighs the perceived “savings.”

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