Regardless of your industry, it is imperative that sales professionals do what it takes to truly understand their customer’s primary business objectives and come up with solutions accordingly. More often than not, too many assumptions are made with regard to what the prospect’s issues are, how severe they might be, and how eager the prospect is to find and implement a solution.
Salespeople need to determine the main objective of their customer. Is the prospect trying to increase revenue? Are they trying to reduce costs? Maybe they want to mitigate risks?
In essence, the job of a sales professional is to get an understanding of what the customers’ underlying motivation is that is driving potential change.
For example, think of an iceberg.
About 10% of an iceberg is above water. That 10% is the obvious part – but not the most important.
For many sales professionals, they see the tip of the iceberg and think they understand what’s beneath the surface. But if the iceberg represents the customer’s challenges, and most of it is hidden beneath the surface, then the hidden portion is the most important to reveal.
Therefore, salespeople must be able to fully understand customer’s primary business objectives and identify the challenges they have that are preventing them from achieving those objectives. These challenges – or “pain points” – are the difference between what the prospect has and what they want; their present situation vs. their desired situation and unresolved business issues. These challenges motivate action.
So, what does the sales professional need to know/learn about the prospect?
- Does their motivation come from a problem that needs to be addressed today (pain), a problem that might arise in the future (fear), or simply an interest in gaining more information (curiosity)?
- What are the causes of the challenge?
- What problems (business and/or personal) has the challenge created?
- How committed is the prospect to taking action to fix the problem?
- What does the ideal resolution look like?
It is important to come armed with a good list of questions that will uncover this information and allow you to maintain control of the conversation. Only after you fully understand a customers’ primary business objectives and the challenges preventing them from being achieved, can you start to discuss how your products & services can help.
Tips for Helping Customers Achieve Their Objectives
- A prospect must convince you that there is a problem and that it’s important to find a solution.
- People don’t buy features and the related benefits; they buy SOLUTIONS to their problems.
- People buy emotionally and justify their decisions logically.
- No pain, no change.
- Features & benefits used prematurely are the primary cause of objections.
- You get your credibility by the type of qualifying questions you ask, not by the length and enthusiasm of your sales pitch.
- If you say it, they can doubt it. If they say it, they believe it.
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