Sales Velocity Partners
www.salesvelocitypartners.com
Driving Value Describing solutions without establishing a compelling need for them creates intellectual interest and curiosity among customers instead of creating the emotional discomfort that is needed to drive change. Conventional salespeople tell stories about their solutions. Prospective customers expect to hear the stories and rarely take them seriously. What is taken seriously is the concern expertise we display in the questions we ask our customers. The right questions form the basis for customer opinions concerning how well we understand critical customer problems and whether they can help customers expand their own knowledge of the problems and how likely they are to be the best source for the solution.
You must help your customer decide: That the problem does indeed exist. That they want to participate in a thorough analysis of the problem. That the problem has a quantifiable cost to their organization. And whether that cost dictates that they must proceed in the search for a solution.
You need to work on follows these steps: Introduce what you know about their Current Business State. Discuss them personally and their organization. Discuss the relevant actionable events that led to your conversation with them. Show them you took the time to learn about them. Discover WHAT it is that that they think you should know about their Current Business State. Find out what their needs are. Don't focus so much on their pain; focus on their gain by them establishing a partnership with you. Tell them WHAT YOU DO. Tell them WHY YOU DO IT. WHY it should be important to them. How you will fit into their goals. Tell them WHEN YOU DO IT…What it is going to look like when you leave. What does the desired state look like? This is a portrait of an imagined future and produces a list of outcomes that customers expect from the solution. Tell them WHEN YOU DO IT…the how of why it works. No ROI's. Present instead an ROS, Return on Solution. Only then, if time permits, you can tell them WHERE YOU HAVE BEEN.
Customers don't care where you’ve been or how many times you've done it. They just care about what it will look like when you’re gone.