One of the advantages of owning an Italian restaurant is
that just about everyone who comes in wants Italian food. It would be an odd
thing for a customer to sit down in an Italian restaurant, look at the menu and
say, “I don’t like anything I see. Can you make General Tso’s Chicken?” Customers
choose the type of restaurant they want to go to, so it’s much easier to sell
to them.
Sales people don’t have that advantage. When talking with a
potential client, the first task is to understand what the client wants and
what the client needs. (Those two things are not always the same, by the way.)
Before I start selling innovation, I need to understand if
the goal is to bring technology advancements into business operations. Maybe
the goal is to drive efficiency. Maybe to improve performance.
Many salespeople will guess what the client wants most, and
they conclude (often mistakenly) that it is price. So they lead with a
discussion on price, sometimes offering discounts right out of the box! Why
would anyone begin by discounting price without even knowing if price is the
key buyer value? It’s like throwing a plate of pistachio-encrusted tuna at the customer
and say, “Eat this! This is delicious!” You may get an angry response, such as:
“You idiot, I’m allergic to nuts!”
Here’s a simple way to test if you understand what is
driving your client’s appetite: ask questions. And then ask more questions. And
listen. A good opening question that can generate a lot of valuable insights if
you listen to the answer is: “If this were to go exactly as you want it to,
what would success look like?” The client might say:
·
Success would be all of our legacy data is
successfully migrated to the new platform. We’ve tried twice and failed.
·
Success would be greater efficiency in our operations
so we can sunset applications.
·
Success would be ease of scalability and
flexibility in the solution because we anticipate rapid growth in the next five
years.
Sure, they want it at the best price possible. No one wants
to overpay. But once you dig in more to these goals of dependability, efficiency
and flexibility, price becomes secondary. To lead with a pricing discussion without
understanding the buyer values would be… nuts.
