Why We Buy: buyer stories to trigger tests

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

When to use

Use this skill to improve marketing by explaining why a buyer started looking, what progress they wanted, and what made a purchase believable. It produces a buyer-insight and trigger-test brief with usable copy and one recommended experiment. Suitable requests include positioning, offers, landing pages, ads, emails, and acquisition campaigns. Begin with behavior and context, then choose a psychological presentation that fits the evidence. [S1][S2]

Use the full loop when interviews or buying stories are available. With reviews, support notes, or sales conversations alone, use a provisional version and identify the missing evidence. For a narrow copy revision, apply the relevant insight and messaging checks without expanding the assignment into a research program. These scope adaptations are package conventions, not additional claims about Bourgoin's framework.

A finished brief must distinguish buyer evidence, interpretation, and a hypothesis awaiting testing. Do not manufacture buyer quotations, emotional motives, endorsements, urgency, or results to fill empty fields. The method generates useful possibilities from stories; it does not establish that a single story represents a whole market. See references/method.md for the evidence rules and exceptions.

Procedure

1. Define the decision. Record the requested deliverable, one growth objective, the intended buyer, and available evidence. Establish the existing metric if known. Use the scope and objective rules in references/method.md, then open templates/output-template.md as the working brief.
2. Select a useful informant. Prefer a recent, best-fit purchaser who obtained value. Before launch, use a recent competitor buyer or someone currently buying a solution. Demographic similarity is insufficient. Follow the recruitment and timing rules in references/method.md. [S1][S2]
3. Recover the buying sequence. Trace the purchase back to the first struggling moment, then reconstruct searches, conversations, alternatives, and decisions. Ask what happened rather than what someone might do. Use the interview prompts in references/method.md. [S1][S2]
4. Build an evidence ledger. Attach a source and timing to each observation. Mark interpretation, unknowns, and contradictions separately. Keep actual buyer wording apart from proposed copy. Follow the ledger guidance in templates/output-template.md.
5. Extract four cornerstone insights. Name the trigger, job, pains with other solutions, and personal desire. Choose the primary job that best explains the purchase, preserving emotional and social context where supported. Use the extraction rules in references/method.md. [S1]
6. Check the buyer's competitive reality. Include actual workarounds, doing nothing, and category outsiders. Identify what made the existing approach tolerable and what changed. Use the alternatives and edge-case guidance in references/method.md. [S8]
7. Choose a fitting psychological move. Decide whether the key barrier is attention, credibility, belief conflict, or anxiety. Select the relevant presentation rather than stacking fashionable effects. Follow the decision table and explicit warnings in references/method.md. [S4][S5][S6][S7][S8]
8. Draft the message and offer. Express the buyer's situation, desired progress, relevant proof, and next action. Use distinctive buyer language without changing its meaning. Consult examples/worked-examples.md for the transformation from generic claims to focused copy. [S3]
9. Design and compare trigger tests. Connect each idea to a buyer, reachable moment, channel, promise, and action. For a team presentation, shortlist three options; recommend one feasible first test. Use the candidate fields in templates/output-template.md. [S1]
10. Make the first test reviewable. Specify implementation, primary measure, comparison, observation period, constraints, and next learning question. Treat missing baselines and small samples honestly. Follow the experiment rules in references/method.md; execution remains within the user's authorized scope.
11. Review, deliver, and learn. Apply checklists/review-checklist.md, repair failures, and present the buying story before the recommendation. When results exist, compare behavior with the hypothesis and update the brief. Check attribution against references/sources.md.

Files in this skill

• SKILL.md: Entry point, use cases, scope, and the main agent loop.
• references/method.md: Detailed principles, decision rules, interview prompts, warnings, and edge cases.
• references/sources.md: Numbered public sources actually fetched, with their contributions.
• examples/worked-examples.md: Two invented illustrations with weak drafts, improved outputs, and rule notes.
• templates/output-template.md: Fill-in buyer-insight and trigger-test brief with field guidance.
• checklists/review-checklist.md: Pass/fail review criteria, frequent failure modes, and repairs.