I recently enjoyed a great philosophical, problem solving moment. I often have the privilege of brainstorming a solution to problems fellow sales colleagues sometimes have. Its like getting an opportunity to play some chess with friends.
The problem: Customers demonstrating need and interested, committing to the next step and then become unavailable or disinterested when the time came to take action. How can the client agree to the problem, the need, the solution, and the next action steps and then, in less than two weeks, decide they were not interested? Good question. Difficult issue. Complex problem. Interesting solution.
Here is the thought process we went through to solve the problem:
1. Is a pattern to this process? Hint: There always is.
2. What is the pattern?
3. Why is this recurring?
4. Is it the client or you?
5. Once you recognize the pattern and the challenge–how do you fix it?
Here was “the elephant in the room” moment for us. Many of the clients they work with have an emotional component to their buying decision. No matter what the sales pros did to educate, communicate and inform the prospect regarding these concerns, the prospects still had unexplained reservations and removed themselves from the buying process. The reason that they backed out? The sales team did not talk to the customer about the emotional issues from the client’s perspective. They were prepared to address how their process takes into account certain issues and challenges. However, they failed to recognize and understand what these issues really were all about from the client’s perspective. No matter how well their process addressed the problem as the company saw it , they were not positioned to fix the emotional obstacle from the client’s perspective.
This is a very subtle nuance. When you tell a client how you are going to use your fulfillment process to solve a critical issue it can be very helpful and informative. However, in this situation, the solution required an approach that addressed the underlying client issue that was directly part of the problem they were trying to solve. The best way to handle this? If you know what the issues are, attack them head-on. For example, “in the past our clients have been concerned about…., what concerns or worries do you have that we need to know about now as it relates to….before we proceed?” Sales people find it hard to talk about negatives in a relationship building process. Yet, there are times when a consistent buying obstacle needs to be dealt with. The best time to deal with it is early and is best dealt with from the prospect’s perspective. When you demonstrate understanding from the client’s perspective — you are better positioned to specifically address the issue and move on.
Sales Cooke never thought about tackling the elephant in the room before. This goes to show that there is always a learning opportunity associated with solving problems. Now that I realize that there may be another pain angle to look at in the sales process, you can be certain I going to do some ‘elephant’ hunting. Happy Selling!