You will be able to apply the buying stages and risks to a real decision of your own, which makes the model easier to remember.
Daniel is 31, works in operations and lives in a resale flat in Clementi (an invented example). He bought a mattress for S$1,400. His decision is used below as the model for mapping a purchase of your own.
The three lessons before this one looked at buyers from the outside. This exercise turns the same buying model onto you. You are the one buyer whose thinking you can see in full. You remember when you got fed up, what you read (a forum thread on the train, for example) and the salesperson who nearly lost you. Mapping one decision honestly takes about twenty minutes, and it teaches you more about your own buyers than any sales script.
You need a pen, the one-page buying map template placed below the lesson, and a purchase you remember in some detail.
Pick something that cost more than S$200 and that you thought about for at least a week. A cheaper purchase or a quicker decision has too little process in it to map. People often choose a laptop, a mattress, a course, a phone plan, a gym membership, an aircon replacement or a holiday package. It helps if a seller was involved, even briefly, but you can map a purchase without one. A purchase made entirely online still goes through all five stages from lesson 1.2.
For about three months Daniel woke with a stiff back most mornings before he connected it to his eight-year-old mattress. His noticing stage ended with a weekend away, when he slept well on a hotel bed.
Researching took two evenings of forum threads and review videos. He also messaged his sister, who had bought a mattress the year before. By the end he knew the terms firm, medium and pocket spring.
For comparing, he visited two showrooms and looked at one online-only brand that offered a long home trial. His budget was S$1,000, and all three options cost more. At the first showroom the assistant opened with an offer "only valid today", and Daniel left within five minutes. At the second, the assistant asked how he slept and which side he lay on, then let him lie on two models for ten minutes without talking. He nearly bought from her, and he still mentions her when friends ask.
He decided on the online brand, because the trial period and free collection on return made the higher price feel safe. His moment of doubt, the point where he nearly walked away, came at checkout. He was S$400 over budget and unsure about the firmness. That is the risk of choosing wrongly, and the written return policy resolved it.
In the justifying stage he told two friends about the mattress within a month and sent his sister a photo.
Daniel took two lessons from the map for his own work. Pressure to decide today made him leave, and a way to undo the decision made him buy.
Work through the stages in order and write one or two lines for each.
Noticing: when you first noticed the problem and what triggered it. Name the day or event. Researching: where you looked, whether that was search, reviews, YouTube, a group chat, an AI assistant or a friend. Comparing: what you compared and what made the shortlist. Deciding: what finally made you act, such as the product, a deadline, a price change or something someone said. Justifying: what you did after paying to reassure yourself it was the right call.
Be specific about how long each stage took. Most people are surprised at how long noticing lasted compared with the few days they spent comparing.
Next, list every seller you dealt with, whether in a shop, by phone, on chat or by email. For each one, note what helped and what put you off, and keep the notes concrete. A word like "friendly" gives you nothing you can copy. A specific behaviour, such as asking how you would use the product before showing you anything, is a habit you can practise. If no seller was involved, write down why. Sometimes the reason is that no seller gave you a reason to talk to them, and that is worth knowing when you sell.
Almost every purchase has one point where the buyer nearly walked away. Find yours and write down what worried you. Match it to one of the four risks from lesson 1.3: paying too much, choosing wrongly, looking foolish, or the effort of switching. Then note what resolved it. Your own buyers will reach the same moment of doubt, and whatever got you past it is a clue to what will get them past it.
When the map is finished, read it back and look for gaps between what you needed and what sellers offered. The most common gap is a seller pitching hard while you were still researching. The second most common is a seller who never asked what you were trying to fix.
Keep the map somewhere you can find it, because you will use it in module 4. There you turn your buyers' problems into value statements, and those are much easier to write once you have felt the doubt yourself.
Now open the template and fill it in for your purchase while the details are fresh.
Fill in the one-page buying map template for your purchase, then write down two lessons from it that you will use with your own buyers.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).