by Tom Fedro
3. Ask quality questions to establish the pain.
Why is the pain happening?
Is it getting worse?
When did it start?
Can we solve it?
During this discovery process, you learn more about the potential customer and their unique needs. Most of the time, quality discovery questions about pain will be open-ended to encourage the prospect to discuss their business candidly. They can help open the lines of communication and get to the heart of the current issues that are causing them either to lose money or miss opportunities to make money. Your industry expertise comes in here, allowing you to demonstrate how your offering can mitigate or eliminate their pain by sharing how well it’s worked with your existing customers in the same space.
For example, you could ask these questions.
What is the biggest challenge in growing your business?
We have found that typical clients experience challenges like A, B or C. Which one of these resonates with you?
How long has this been a problem?
What have you done about your pain to date?
Everybody has challenges they are dealing with. What are yours?
What would make your work life easier and more productive?
What challenges or current blunders are costing you the most money?
Is there anything that you find to be continually wasting your time? What is it?
Which process or activity needs to be changed or improved?
What would you say are management’s top priorities this quarter and this year?
What’s standing in the way of you achieving your priorities?
What would increase the likelihood of switching your business to my company?
What could hold you back from making a decision this quarter?
What should I be asking that I haven’t?
(Note that none of these questions can be answered with “Yes” or “No”.)
After each question, always, always, always — without exception — say, “Tell me more about that.” Keep pulling on the thread until you’ve unraveled the entire sweater. It’s critical to a successful sales engagement that your prospect is talking 80 percent of the time because that’s the only way to sell. You have to understand where they stand and allow them to explain their issues to you so that you can respond with the right solution. If you’re talking about your product or your feature set, you’re not selling; you’re telling. In million-dollar deals, that’s a sure sign of an amateur, and the customer can smell it.
Sell, don’t tell!
After this process, if all parties are in agreement that the prospect has measurable pain, it’s much easier to start the process of positioning yourself, your company and your solution as the most effective way to eliminate that pain in the shortest possible time frame.
Invariably, you will find that many people don’t want to talk about pain; they’d rather forget about it and hope it goes away. It’s something they’re dealing with, and they know they have to deal with it, but there can be a lot of anxiety around the discussion, and that’s understandable. They have to make a decision, and it might mean spending a million bucks. Some people feel it would be better to analyze the problem a little bit longer and put it off till next year — or until they get a promotion, get the heck out of the division, and pass the buck to the next guy.
You have no choice but to wade through those invisible currents. Pull on your waders and work with your prospect to get everything out on the table so that you have a clear look at where they really stand. Learn the hazards to avoid and where to move to reach the next step in the sales process. Perhaps you could ask here what’s holding them back from making a decision that quarter. Is there anything you should be asking that you haven’t?
When you engage in the line of questioning I listed above, many times people will open up about their real issues — as many things that affect a business decision can be personal. Maybe the prospect is getting ready to retire, or they’re expecting a new baby, and they don’t want to rock the boat right now. As a salesperson, your job is to get to the real reason why a decision is not happening. You must discover all the obstacles that are impeding progress on signing a deal. The quality of your questions will determine your success in million-dollar opportunities.
Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the
other side of fear. – George Addair
If you confirmed the pain early in your set of questions, you should continue asking more questions to ensure you fully grasp the depth of the pain and verify that it is felt throughout the business. Is the perception of the pain evident to others beside your particular contact? Be sure to confirm the pain with multiple representatives in each affected department, and get everyone talking and educated on the pain.
The more people are talking, the more you’re going to learn, so dig as deep as you can. How long has the pain been there? How much money have they spent trying to fix it in the past? Why is it still here? Once you’ve identified and quantified the pain, you can map that to numbers showing how much it’s costing the company versus what their investment in your solution would be. Things are getting interesting.
Change before you have to. – Jack Welch
Know when to adjust your discovery tactics.
Develop the ability to differentiate between selling to lower levels and C-level individuals. Why? Because the higher up the food chain these authorities are, the more likely it is that they will be afflicted with discovery fatigue. When you’re talking to C-Suite executives, they don’t want to answer elementary discovery questions such as “What’s keeping you up at night?” and “What are your objectives?”
These executives want and expect you to already understand that information due to your excellent research and/or previous interaction with their subordinates. What they want to talk about is what should be keeping them up at night. They want new information; they want to hear about threats they haven’t already foreseen.
When you’re in front of these types of decision makers, refine your tactics. Instead of asking 12 questions, drill it down to three or four. Spend the rest of your time sharing critical industry information that they may not know. Share with them what their competitors are doing that could be of significant value. Become a trusted source and advisor to senior-level executives in your targets, as it builds trust up and down the line — that’s how you’re going to earn your money when you’ve made it to the C-Suites.
4. Establish the authority.
Once the pain is confirmed, identify the power to authorize the purchase. Who can say “Yes,” and ink the deal? Authority could be one person, a few people or a group, depending on the particular account and the situation. What research should you do beforehand to ensure you’re connecting with the correct individual?
I suggest that this is where you utilize the best tools you can get your hands on. If you have a subscription to one of the database services, such as DiscoverOrg, Hoovers, InsideView and ZoomInfo, you already know they’re great resources to map out an account by learning titles and where people fit in the organization. There is also free information on LinkedIn or if they’re a public company, you can read annual shareholder reports to confirm where your target is.
Generally, you’re going to have an idea of where to find the authority based on title, history and your ICP database. If you’re an established company, you’ll know how deals concluded in the past, who made those calls and who signed off on the deals. If you’re a startup, you’re going to do some guesswork, but you should understand most agreements are going to flow through the financial people at the end of the day. You should know who they are, but they won’t always be the final word on the deal. What your solution does and who the end user is will help determine which departments (and who in those departments) are likely to be involved in the final decision to invest in your offering, and have the authority to sign the deal.
Fortune favors the bold.
It’s always helpful to gather information about the account from the inside before you make your first contact or run at the actual sales process. If you’re trying to get into Google, you may want to establish relationships with some Googlers even though they might not be in your circles. For example, leverage friends of friends in your LinkedIn network; find out where your connections are connected with people who work for Google, and set up an exploratory lunch. You could say, “Bill’s a great friend of mine, and I see you too are connected with him. He suggested I reach out due to your extensive experience with Google. They’re a potential prospect of mine and your time with them is very interesting to me. I’d love to take you to lunch to learn your thoughts, and we can make fun of Bill too!”
Use lunch to learn about that account. The more information you can gather before you go deep into your sales campaign, the better off you’ll be. You could discover someone on the inside who has influence, helping your initial contact get to the right person. I should say that in my career, I haven’t often seen a casual relationship like this get you to the right level. It’s rare that it does, though it can happen. The value of these contacts is in gaining more inside information concerning what the priorities and issues are, and perhaps learning top management’s two or three critical objectives for the next three years. You could gather information like that from anybody in the company, and it will always be helpful as you prepare your pitch.
LinkedIn can be a beneficial resource. Any information you can gain about an account or an individual within an account you’re targeting is going to be useful, of course. Use LinkedIn to help map out important contacts and document useful information about their personality, likes and dislikes, education history and even their interests and hobbies (such as what kind of art they like or which sports they enjoy). With LinkedIn Premium, you can even find more data, such as the contact’s company growth trends, recent hires, notable alumni (perhaps finding people you already know) and executives who have recently left. Those details let you start the relationship, knowing what you might have in common. It’s still true that people buy from people they like, and the more you have in common with someone, the more likely you’ll be to form a productive relationship.
Additionally, working through your network to find people who have relationships with that account can be helpful. Look for non-competing vendors that have already been successful with that account. For example, if you’re selling security software, you may be able to find out who sold them their ERP software or their backup solution. Find the rep and see if you can take them to lunch or collaborate on the phone and pick their brain. See who had the final authority on their deal, learn about the process, and ask how long it took to close. Perhaps they’ll share details on the prospect’s political landscape, such as who and what can kill a deal, or drop the names of some key people you don’t already know. Collecting as much information as possible beforehand gives you a much better picture of what it will take to win.
The key to mastering any kind of sales is switching statements about you — how great you are, and what you do — to statements about them.
– Jeffrey Gitomer
Once you’re in the account and the pain is established, it’s appropriate to ask questions such as who else would be involved in signing off on the decision and how the decision process would flow for the investment. Be candid in mapping out how the deal will happen because you know you’ve got the goods, and you know they’re going to want them.
If you find that you’re speaking to someone lacking authority, gracefully ask to talk to someone else. This can get touchy. People like to be in control, and they want to accomplish as much as they can before bringing their boss in. You’ve got to respect the process; however, the Director, VP or the CEO — whoever is going to be the ultimate decision maker — has to be identified. You may not have to meet with that person to win the sale, but it’s imperative to identify who ultimately has the final say. If things go south, you can then always go back to the top for another bite at the apple (as you saw in my Hail Mary case study).
If you find yourself at a mid-manager roadblock in large deals where seven-figure investment decisions are being made, try working the multilevel selling approach previously discussed. Offering to bring in a senior-level executive from your own team may be the only way to move up the chain on their team.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. – Eleanor Roosevelt
For example, you could say, “I’d like to bring in our vice president of customer support to meet with your technical vice president so that we can be on the same page when we’re putting our proposal together for support requirements.” That’s not intimidating to the manager, but it’s going to get you in front of that decision maker who needs to hear your unfiltered story and pitch. Multilevel selling is a smart and proven sales tactic that can bring in new pairs of eyes on both sides to help push your proposal on to the next step in the sales process.
Many times, you will have a situation where a C-level executive refuses the meeting, and you’ll be directed to their subordinates as appropriate. Of course, you’ll run into this because their job is not to get involved; they’ve got a lot on their plate. Unless and until it becomes clear that the C-level executive’s top priority is the elimination of the pain that your solution addresses, you’re not going to be able to get to that ultimate decision maker; they will be relying on their team’s recommendation. In this case, it’s going to have to be dealt with at the appropriate level that the pain rises to, and your job is to make sure you know where that is and who’s driving the bus into the decision maker’s office with the final recommendation.
Say your prospect has a significant data breach discussed on ABC News, then your security software has a much better chance of getting you into the CEO’s office in a much more timely fashion at that point. Exploit what’s happening in the world, particularly as it relates to your prospect; in our selling security solutions example, use that general anxiety around data breaches to create a sense of urgency. If, however, there haven’t been any notable breaches or problems lately, well, everybody knows that it’s great to have good security, but it might not be a high priority. The process to decide on investment is likely to happen at a lower level. Your job is to get in front of those who can recommend your solution to the people who will spend the money. Give them the information and resources they need to show return on investment and why it makes perfect sense to close the deal.
In those cases, you may never actually meet that final authority. Your argument must be compelling enough that the people who have evaluated your offering and are going to use your product are convinced, and can clearly articulate the ROI and benefits associated with a ‘go’ decision for your offering to the powers that be. Build enough trust in your contacts that they are comfortable putting their reputations on the line.
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. – Thomas Edison
To get to this juncture (using our selling security solutions example), it’s critical to bring the industry knowledge and competitive information that you’ve gathered as a sales professional to the table in a way that makes sense and is recognized as valuable. Perhaps they haven’t seen, understood, or synthesized multiple events around the world that could potentially impact their business. Create a sense of urgency around the idea that these massive customer data breaches are real and are moving in on retail in a much more insidious way than they might realize.
Explain that these breaches are evolving from the billion-dollar behemoths, such as Equifax, Marriott and Target, down to the mid-enterprise companies of less than $500 million. If your prospect doesn’t have the right mix of services in place to protect their network, they could fall victim to those same attacks. Drive down into specifics that aren’t splashed all over the news; find the value you can bring that isn’t already known and publicized. That’s where the
industry expertise, knowledge and anecdotes can shoot you up to the next level, or get your internal champion up to that level in financial meetings so they can get the cash for your solution appropriated.
Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is. – Vince Lombardi
5. Ensure the money is there.
Acknowledge that you have found the pain and authority, then ensure that the money for the purchase is there.
In some cases, the same person who has the authority can confirm the money, but it may be a budgeted opportunity. You have to get inside the account and understand their particular situation (including their needs, goals and financials) because it can be significantly different from what you perceive on social media. You have to be inside the business to do that kind of research.
In a public company, you can always look at annual reports and see their financials. Where a company may be highly profitable, they might’ve missed their growth numbers by 2 percent, so they’re not going to spend any money at that time. Another company might be losing money, millions and millions of dollars in the red, yet they’re ready to spend a ton of cash because your solution could help them close the spigot. It’s the salesperson’s job to get in and confirm the money is ready to be invested.
I suggest you ask straight up, “Assuming that our solution eliminates the pain and provides a return on investment that’s greater than the finance requires, is the money budgeted and available so we can wrap this up by the end of the quarter?” A question like that is quite straightforward, and they have to be able to answer “Yes” or “No”. If they can’t answer it, you’ve got a little red flag there prompting you to pull that thread a little more to see where the money falls out.