by Ian Altman
Make a list of marketing content items that would allow prospective clients to perform self-evaluations. (These items could be surveys, diagnostics, or articles such as “The Five Most Important Things to Consider Before Buying.”) Do you have these content items available? If not, plan to create and publish them in the next quarter.
Develop a scorecard to allow you and the buyer to evaluate, from the same side of the table, the potential impact you can have on the client’s company. Remember that acknowledging that you cannot have a dramatic impact today will increase the likelihood of the buyer’s considering you in the future.
Write your version of Entice, Disarm, and Discover. Try it out on friends or colleagues by saying, “I think this might be a better way for me to introduce our services,” and see what they think.
CHAPTER 4
Get to the Truth
Here’s a quick recap of the first part of the book: you’re solving a puzzle and you know your unique offering. You are focusing on why a buyer is buying, instead of on what you are selling. Now as we move forward, we need to recognize that the knowledge of why—while essential—is incomplete. There is more truth to uncover that is directly related to when and if the buyer will actually buy, as well as whether the buyer’s organization is positioned to benefit from your solution.
In this chapter we focus on two factors that drive when a buyer will be ready to spend money for your solution: urgency and readiness. Urgency is the perceived immediate impact on the problem that you would solve. Readiness is the buyer’s ability to realize a benefit from the solution you offer.
Failing to get to the truth increases risk: the risk of spending too much energy on the wrong prospect, the risk of losing the sale because of insufficient understanding, and the risk of selling into a situation where you are not positioned to have a positive impact. These risks often lead to regrets like these:
“Why did we spend so much time educating them when they didn’t end up buying anything?”
“They were polite and interested, but they never pulled the trigger.”
“They had too much other stuff going on to give our project the attention it needed, and now they’re unhappy because they are not seeing results.”
Getting to the truth in the course of selling is sometimes referred to as “discovery” or “consultative selling.” It is commonly practiced in the sale of high-dollar, high-complexity services and is seen as a way to build buy-in and to connect to the buyer’s pain.
But even for less complex products, Same Side Selling requires getting to the truth about the buyer’s situation. We think of this step as turning all of the puzzle pieces right-side up. After all, who would try to solve a puzzle with the pieces upside down?
The Need for a Good Diagnosis
You can think of the process of turning pieces right-side up as a diagnosis. This step protects your resources (time, energy, and money) and can help set you apart in the marketplace.
Diagnose to Protect Your Investment
In game-based selling, getting to the truth may be optional. After all, once the buyer shows a willingness to buy, all that matters is closing the deal. You sell, you win, game over: the impact of your solution is secondary.
But when you are focused on solving, not selling, you must uncover the relevant details of the buyer’s situation. Those details will reveal the extent to which you can have an impact, and they will inform your decision on whether to pursue the opportunity.
Remember that your puzzle pieces don’t fit just anywhere. Where they do fit, they complete the picture and everyone benefits. To find those fits as often as possible, you must qualify prospects and opportunities and flee those that are not a good fit.
This is worth repeating: you will limit your impact unless you actively qualify your opportunities. Your resources are best spent in situations that meet all three of the following criteria:
1. The issue your client faces has sufficient impact on her organization to warrant an investment or change to solve the problem.
2. You have a dialogue with the stakeholders to understand their underlying issues—and to confirm that they know that you understand their situation.
3. You bring capabilities or offerings that make you better suited than others to solve the client’s problem.
In between discussing the problem (step 1) and identifying a solution (step 3) is the important step of diagnosis. It is to your benefit to advance the diagnosis discussion, early and intentionally.
In Chapter 3 we revealed how a second-place finish can actually be the worst outcome, because you expend the energy to pursue a customer but miss out on the reward. Unfortunately, you can end up in second place even when you appear to have no other competitors. How? By losing to the buyer’s status quo. This outcome happens when the so-called buyer evaluates alternatives, decides to buy nothing, and stays with his current solution. Doing nothing is just as much of a decision as selecting another vendor. Rightly or wrongly, the buyer concludes that the impact of a new solution is not significant enough to justify making a change. When you lose to the status quo, it can feel like you ran your heart out, only to learn that the race didn’t count.
Early in the life of one of Ian’s prior companies, Ian was pursuing an opportunity at a large pharmaceutical company. The prospect had seen a demonstration of the company’s software and wanted to arrange an on-site demonstration for other members of his team. As Ian probed to uncover the other parties involved, the prospect said, “You don’t need to worry about that. I know what we need, and we have fifteen people who are all looking forward to your visit next Thursday.” Instead of pushing back, Ian agreed to have the meeting. (Spoiler alert: that’s the last time Ian would agree to such a meeting under those conditions.) The meeting appeared to go well, but there was no immediate follow-up. Every week or so, Ian would ask the prospect, “Have you made a decision yet?” After six months, the company decided that they were going to abandon the project. The prospect explained, “Your technology was very good, but we realize that we can live with what we have.”
Ian had assumed that when the prospect saw his product demonstration, his company would fall in love with the solution. Though the company may have been impressed with the solution, they had no sense of urgency to solve their problem and move the investment forward.
To ensure that your efforts are well spent, you need to become an expert at getting to the truth with the buyer. After you learn why a buyer would need your solution, the next question is whether the buyer considers the issue worth solving. When Ian moved forward without ensuring that the client knew the impact of the problem, he took a risk. Had he pushed back and asked more questions before providing a demonstration, it would have seemed to slow down the momentum of a prospect eager to see a product. In fact, hindsight teaches us that asking questions would have saved Ian time and effort. It might even have provoked a discussion that showed the people at that company that their issue was more important than they realized.
Diagnose for a Competitive Advantage
(for the Right Customers)
Getting to the truth in a diagnosis will help you protect your investment. It is also a meaningful way to set your company apart from others. More often than not, the buyer will buy from the seller that she believe best understands her situation. That perceived understanding will outweigh price, features, and experience.
Buyers believe that you understand their situation when you are proficient at walking them from the symptom (the statement of their issue) to the diagnosis (what impact the issue has on their organization and how important it is for them to solve it, compared to other things on their plate).
While good diagnostic skills will help you attract more customers, it is important to stress that this is not a tactic of persuasion or manipulation. A diagnosis is a means to get to the truth. The truth is always your ally in Same Side Selling, even when it seems to decrease the likelihood of making a sale.
Buyer’s Perspectiv
e: We can tell when the so-called diagnostic process is simply checking the box, because the salesperson isn’t really listening, and all answers seem to lead to their solution. How convenient!
As you investigate the prospect’s needs, listen and learn before you prescribe. If you do not have the skills or resources to provide the best solution, don’t try to fake it. Recognize that your client will probably notice the mismatch, quite possibly from your body language and tone. If anything, you want to acknowledge the lack of fit before the buyer does. This acknowledgment will help to build trust and may change the tone of the conversation (in a way that’s similar to the Disarm phase described in Chapter 3). If you are comfortable identifying your gaps, then buyers are more likely to believe you when you present your strengths.
A bad fit is not a bad thing. Finding that your solution will not dramatically help the prospect is a successful outcome for getting to the truth. While it may close a window of opportunity, it will keep the relationship door open for the future. You will discover in Chapter 7, Don’t Force the Fit, that getting to a quick “no” often means that you’ll be welcomed back whenever you want.
Diagnose Like the Professionals
Fortunately, all of us have seen diagnosis modeled well. The field of medicine illustrates the importance of uncovering the meaningful details of a patient’s symptoms, as well as sound tactics to get to the truth. Imagine the following scenarios:
You visit a doctor and say that your elbow hurts. The physician looks at you and says, “Yep—It’s tennis elbow. I’ll schedule you for surgery tomorrow.” Would you feel confident in that course of action? Or would you run from the office, never to come back?
You call your doctor because you have a stuffy nose. You ask the doctor to prescribe an antibiotic. The physician responds by saying, “I’m not sure that you have a bacterial infection. If you don’t, the antibiotic will not help and could hurt. Can we do some diagnosis first to ensure that I recommend the proper treatment?”
Jumping to a solution before knowing the key facts is bad medicine, whether it’s the patient or the doctor who makes the assumption. Good doctors earn trust by collaboratively diagnosing the patient’s situation. They ask questions like “How long has this been going on? What have you tried to alleviate the pain? Is it affecting your day-to-day life? Does it wake you up at night?”
The same types of diagnostic questions help you get to the truth about your prospect. Knowing this truth is necessary before you prescribe a remedy. We love the medical metaphor because it not only helps with the process, but also reveals the intent. Same Side Selling is about getting to the truth as quickly as possible.
Get to the Truth about Urgency
No matter what you are selling, your success will largely be driven by the buyer’s sense of urgency. Urgency makes the difference between a prospect who only understands the value you provide and one who is also ready to act to capture that value.
Interest doesn’t lead to sales; urgency does. As a rule, the buyer should have at least at much urgency as the seller. If you have a greater sense of urgency to solve the problem than your prospect does, then you should be prepared to pay for it because the prospect will not.
Don’t Create False Urgency
When the seller is more committed to fixing the problem than the buyer is, you can easily fall into the adversarial trap. It’s easy to get stuck convincing rather than solving, and you can come across as desperate and alarmist.
Picture a home-security-system salesman trying to make a sale to a resident who believes his neighborhood is safe, or a life insurance salesman painting a picture of how “accidents can happen” to a reluctant prospect. Your field of business might not evoke the same visceral reaction, but when you are trying to persuade someone that his problem is bigger than he is ready to acknowledge, you risk a perception of fear-mongering.
Buyer’s Perspective: Why is this person trying to magnify the problem and make it sound so bad? She’s trying to scare me so I’ll buy what she’s selling. I’m not going to fall for that.
You may bring passion to what you sell and appreciate how it can make a difference. But your urgency as the seller is not enough to propel the sale. If you press forward even when your prospects do not perceive a problem worth solving, you will build a reputation as someone who is always trying to sell, not solve.
At the same time, prospects do not always wear their urgency on their sleeve. They might need your help to realize the full impact of their problem before they feel the appropriate level of urgency. You can help them discover the impact and importance of their issue.
Assess Urgency with Issue, Impact, and Importance
Traditional lead qualification centers on budget, authority, and need. Some organizations also track the buyer’s timeline to make the acronym “BANT.” While this mnemonic can be helpful, focusing on BANT reveals only indirect indicators of why a buyer would buy. Budgets and timelines often change. In today’s world, with more decisions being made through consensus, authority can be misleading or ambiguous.
A simpler and more predictive path to qualify urgency is to uncover the buyer’s issue, impact, and importance:
• Issue: What problem is the client organization trying to overcome, or what is their goal?
• Impact: What happens if they don’t solve the problem? What downstream problems is it causing?
• Importance: Compared to other things on the client’s plate, how important is this?
This framework provides a strong indicator of urgency and is a shortcut to Finding Impact Together. Finding enough impact will lead the client to finding unbudgeted dollars. Let’s walk through the steps of determining the issue, impact, and importance.
Define the Issue
When you identify why the buyer will buy, you can define the issue his company has. This is usually the easy part, as your customer may draw from a short list of possible problems.
For example, if you are selling information technology (IT) services, your potential buyer might have an interest in his company’s systems being more reliable, so he is contemplating outsourcing IT support to you.
Define the Impact
The impact shows how the issue is hurting the prospect’s company or holding them back. Defining the impact can start with a list of problems related to the issue. This is where good questions and even better listening are essential, because impacts can vary widely for your prospects.
Imagine that you are selling marketing services to a prospect, and you have determined that the company’s issue is the lack of a single compelling advertising message. The potential impacts from that issue cover a wide range:
• Disappointing sales
• Confusion in the marketplace
• Low morale because the staff is not proud of their message
• Higher costs to get multiple messages out
The impact includes all the problems that the issue implies. In fact, “implication” is a helpful word to remember when defining the impact of a client’s problem. “Implication” is the “I” in Neil Rackham’s sales classic, SPIN Selling (MacGraw-Hill, 1988). In the book, Rackham explains that prospects often need to be guided through implications to understand “the seriousness of the problem.” You can guide a buyer through that thought process by using open-ended questions about impact:
“You said the lack of a single marketing message is a problem. How is that affecting your company?”
“Is this causing any other problems, or is it pretty well contained?”
“Does this issue affect your sales in any way? Your operations? Your profitability?”
Define the Importance
Finally—and critically—you need to evaluate the importance of the buyer’s problem. Your prospects may be able to pick their issue from a short list. Their impact is an essay question, in which they describe the downstream problems. Importance is always a relative matter and is best assessed using a numeric scale.
The be
st question for gauging importance is, “Compared to other things on your plate, how important is this one on a scale of 1 to 10?” The answer to this question will provide great insight into the sense of urgency and is the quickest way to see if you are making progress toward a solution or wasting time.
If They Don’t Really Care, They Are Not Prospects
If you find that more than half of the prospects you talk to are committed to solving the problem that you address, then you are doing a fine job of qualifying. Sellers tend to believe that if they can just get in front of the right person, they will be able to speak to a problem that the prospect cares about.
Unfortunately, just because prospects are meeting with you doesn’t mean they care. We hate to break it to you, but we’d hate even more to see you waste time with non-prospects. Even when they admit to having a problem that you address, that does not, by a long shot, ensure that they are committed to solving it.
Don’t Convince Them; Let Them Convince You
Your best opportunities occur when clients convince you that their problems are worth fixing. This idea is similar to the concept of having buyers qualify themselves, which we explained in the last chapter. In the adversarial trap, the burden of establishing importance falls on the seller alone. This is not the case when you are using Same Side Selling.
We are not minimizing the importance of helping clients identify the impact of the issues they face. But after that conversation, the process comes back to defining importance: “Now that we have taken a look at the impact, how important is it for you to address this issue?” On a scale of 1 to 10—where 10 is the greatest importance—your true prospects will rate their importance at 8 or higher. Rarely do potential buyers decide to make a change or investment when the response is below an 8.