1. General slack-jawed apathy

The marketing copy fails to awaken interest in the prospect. Imagine your prospect as an incredibly slothful slack-jawed couch potato whose inherent motivation to do anything to make his life better is at the level of a crustacean.

2. Lack of understanding

Imagine your prospect as a dull student, wearing a dunce cap. The truth is your prospects are only giving your material a fraction of their brain-energy. While they might actually be intelligent, if you make them work any harder than necessary to comprehend your offer your sales will suffer (people prefer not to think any more than they have to).

3. "What's in it for me?"

This question is always on your prospect's mind and if your marketing doesn't answer it he'll be gone very fast.  Even if you are marketing a charity count on self-interest, which can take the form of taking action to feel good about oneself, but is still, as a motivation, selfish validation even while appearing altruistic. 

Imagine your prospect as incredibly selfish to the point of arrogance - because when doing online marketing you have little ability to win him over with joviality or faux-friendship, manipulative sales tactics to be sure, but still effective in face-to-face selling. Today's prospect is in control - he doesn't need you to educate him about your industry because he can Google it and often comes to your offer with a level of self-interested savvy that would frighten old-school sales-reps ... and his one question is "what's in this for me?" Your marketing needs to address this with power and authority to even get the interest of this new breed of buyer.

4. Fear of being ripped-off

You don't get very far in life without getting ripped-off... and today consumers are very wary of internet peddlers, even while they embrace the internet and spend more and more money on it every day they are also paranoid to a fault about fraud.

In fact many are less-likely to even agree to give you an email address today than they were in the past. It's just reality, so at every stage your marketing needs to offer reassurance and consistency so the process "feels safe".

5. Decision reluctance

As a business owner yourself you are in an elite class of people - your results depend on your ability to make decisions in a timely manner.  For most wage-earning people who do not own businesses or do not work in high-pressure careers where quick decisions are necessary, will hem-and-haw over the smallest manner.

As a business owner you value your time and make decisions quickly and often on less-than-complete information, just as firefighters, surgeons and military people must.  For most consumers however making a decision is a an intimidating commitment and they will avoid it unless they are absolutely persuaded it is essential they take action.

Basically, most people need a kick in the pants to make up their minds.

Example of decision reluctance:  The Chinese communist regime in the 1950s did extensive testing with American prisoners of war.  They found that by isolating and confining a small portion of the prisoner population (the decision makers) the rest were not decisive by nature and would make no attempt to escape.  Only 10% of the prisoners were capable of making a split-second decision to seize an escape opportunity.  When these leaders were removed from the general prison population and jailed, the rest were docile as lambs.

The question is not whether or not your prospects are reluctant decide to buy from you, the question is how your business is going to overcome this considerable barrier.

6. Reluctance to part with money

Let's face it - one of the major reasons people don't buy is because they have limited financial resources; when they choose to buy from you they are eliminating other options for spending their money, so they want to make a wise decision in using their resources.

Even most wealthy people are judicious in how they spend money - it's how they got to where they are.

Aside from the prospect who is a knee jerk tightwad, usually to his detriment, there is the very real factor that in general you need your offer to be perceived as more valuable than the asking price.   

7. Reluctance to commit time

Your prospect is busy, or thinks he is, and the first thing you need to do is convince him it is worth his time to even understand and consider your offer, much less make a decision to buy. 

Even when you offer valuable free information many people will not make the time to go through it, just as you are right now weighing in your mind whether you want to go down the rabbit hole with me and even read my entire offer, much less make time for a consultation.

Furthermore, your prospect is aware that the more time he dedicates to exploring your offer the more he will get caught in small commitments and the more likely he will be persuaded to part with his money.  Unless you convince him otherwise, he may refuse to make time to consider your offer as a avoidance behavior in order to not spend money or avoid the discomfort of having a selling conversation with you or your employees.

As bizarre as these psychological factors are they are very real obstacles your marketing must overcome, like climbing a tall mountain, in order to succeed in today's marketplace.

Because most of your competition is only peripherally-aware at best of these obstacles you have an advantage of competitive intelligence you've gained right now.  This advantage must be acted-upon to get you any great benefit. 

Is it work to create the kind of marketing system that overcomes these factors?   Absolutely.

And because it IS work to do it most of your competition may be effectively nullified in your prospect's minds when you do.  In fact overcoming these factors is a critical guiding objective in creating the kind of marketing machine that can make you wealthy in today's marketplace.