We have tools and technology that “equip” us for conversations with our customers.
- Research tools to help us understand the companies and organizations we want to engage.
- Research/social tools that help us understand the people we are engaging.
- Content and other materials focused on key personas, functions, needs, problems.
- AI tools that enable us to do financial and other analyses on our customers.
- AI tools that can help us translate all of the above into things we should be talking about with our customers.
In years past, it might have taken hours to put that together, preparing for a single call. Now, all of it is at our fingertips.
The problem is, these are the starting points to a conversation. And if they work, as we would hope they work, can we carry on the conversation?
Too often, the conversations go like this, “I’ve noticed market expansion is a key strategy of your company. We help our customers expand their markets with these solutions, can I schedule a demo?” Or, “You have a major initiative on improving efficiencies and reducing costs, our software tools help you improve efficiency by 20%, can I schedule a demo?”
To have high impact conversations, we have to have the business/financial savvy to be able to drill down into the issues. We have to have the ability to understand the specific impact on the people/groups we are engaging, what it means to them, their work, and their ability to do their jobs. We may have to challenge their thinking about those issues, help them discover how they might address those issues, help them think about changes they might make, the risks and challenges in making those changes. Then we have to understand what it means for them, how they feel about it, their confidence in their ability navigate the changes.
These conversations precede any conversation about how we might help them. They focus on developing both our and the customer deeper understanding of the issues and challenges they face.
And the problem is, our tools and AI technologies can’t help us much on these. These are all deeply situational, contextual, and specific to individuals and groups—at a moment in time.
So while we have fantastic starting points for these high impact conversations, unless we can hold up our side of the conversation, creating value with the customer, we potentially squander great opportunities.
How do we develop that understanding? Part of it is doing the work, rather than getting the answers. It’s difficult to leverage financial data, unless you have some experience in analyzing that data, in the process understanding what it means and the leverage points. Just because ChatGPT does the analysis for us, doesn’t mean we know what to do with it.
All of this gets to the root of human learning and understanding. We don’t learn by being given the answers. We learn by figuring out how to get the answers and what those answers mean. We build experience, competence, and confidence by doing this work a lot. And by, periodically, making mistakes.
Recently I was working with some teams developing account plans. All of them were using great tools to understand the accounts and people. They were plugging 10Ks into ChatGPT and prompting for key issues. As one of the teams was presenting, a person raised her hand to make comments. She wasn’t part of one of the team, she was a product manager sitting in the workshop.
“I used to work for one of the competitors to this account. We faced similar issues and had similar challenges. When I look at the priorities and analysis you are using, these are the things they are likely thinking of…… these are some of the challenges they may face in addressing those issues…… these are things we might do to help them better understand these….”
She was looking at the same data everyone else was looking at but she was looking at it differently, based on what she had learned and her experience working with a competitor. Her approach to the same data the others had was very different.
Having the answers is helpful, and we have remarkable tools to give us the answers.
But understanding what drove these and what they mean is the skill most critical to effectively engaging and creating value with our prospects and customers.
We don’t have to have deep experience, as this sales person did. We can build our understanding with business and financial acumen skill development. We can build our understanding by taking time to understand our customers, how they get work done and what’s important to their function and to them, personally.
Hang out where your customers hang out. Look at what they are talking about, pay attention to the words and terminology they use.
A good start in doing this is using the Brock Questionert (with a hat tip to Stephen Colbert). It’s 15 questions that help you to characterize a customer, a persona, and better understand how they work. Click on the link for the Questionert.
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