I joined a boat club last week. Although my wife and I did a bunch of research and cost analysis, my decision to move forward really came down to one statement by the club representative, Kyle. When he described the experience of us showing up to the marina and having someone greet us to unload our car and put all our stuff on the boat, I was hooked. That visualization sparked an emotion inside me that was stronger than any price justification. I thought that was such a special, value-added touch. In short, I thought it was really cool, and that was all it took.
Selling in a business-to-business environment today can be complicated – especially if you’re trying to excel at your job and be more than just an order-taker. How can you understand buyers from four different generations? What questions should you ask to spark a brutally honest conversation with your customers? How can you get invited to an opportunity before shopping begins? What AI tools should you use? Like I said, it can be complicated. However, it doesn’t have to be.
Most of the time, you can spark a positive emotion in your customer by demonstrating one really cool thing about your solution. A few things to consider about your one cool thing:
- Most cool things are tied to problems and pain that are being experienced by the customer, so you can’t skip those questions and conversations.
- There might be different cool things for each person on the decision-making committee, so understand those personas and scenarios.
- Really cool things are based in the future and need to be visualized to make a full impact. I had a clear vision of our family getting out of my vehicle, having someone greet us and take our cooler out of the back with towels and bags on top while the three of us walked casually to the boat. That vision was all I needed.
- While you’re uncovering pain, don’t be afraid to tease the customer a little bit. “We might be able to give you capabilities to do that from your phone rather than driving back to the office. I’m not sure yet, but I think it’ll work and will be able to confirm after a few more questions.” Don’t give them the solution too early, keep uncovering pain, but tease them a little bit at a time to relieve them and give them a little hope. (This is a new approach resulting from a recent trend of customers ghosting salespeople after they’ve uncovered a bunch of pain but not providing any relief.)
In short, if you illustrate one really cool thing that only you can do, your customers will find the money to pay for it. All the logic in the Universe can’t beat the emotion generated by one really cool thing that can solve a painful situation.
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