During discovery or needs analysis calls, there is a clear delineation between bad, good, and great sales people. Bad sales people pitch the same product or service regardless of what the customer needs. Good sales people learn the pain points of the customer and provide a solution. Great sales people look for clues to problems their customer didn’t even realize they have. However, they all make the same common mistake – even the great ones…
The most common mistake made in the discovery phase of the sales process is unveiling the solution too soon. Two fundamental things need to happen for a successful sale to be made:
- You’ve got to present the right solution.
- Your customer has to want that solution.
Sometimes your customer will reject an idea at 11:05, but if waited until 11:25 they would’ve been begging for it. Let’s use a hosted access control service as an example. If you present this solution early in the meeting, when you know it’s the right solution, your customer might reject it immediately with a response like this:
“We’ll never let someone else host our data. Too many risks.”
Now, let’s assume that you keep asking questions about their overburdened IT staff, about the weekends your point of contact has to work, about the overtime that comes out of her budget, about the ongoing conflict between IT and security, and about the stress she is receiving from finance about their unpredictable expenses. After 20 minutes of this type of discussion, her response to your suggestion might be something like this:
“We typically don’t want to have someone else host our data, but I’d like to learn more about your services and the resilience of your security. If we can take some of these problems away from my staff sooner than later, and our data is safe, then I’m all for it.”
Not a slam dunk, but a lot different than the former response.
No matter how great of a sales professional you are, there is a pretty good chance that you present the solution too soon. I know I do, and I teach this stuff! I get excited about the solution and want to share it immediately. Don’t do it. Hold it in your back pocket and make sure your customer is emotionally engaged before revealing your idea. You’ve got to have the right solution, and they’ve got to be ready for it!
What do you think? Have you done this before? Have you done it this week???
Thank you for your comments.
