Focus On The Customer Need To Buy

The big problem sales people have is their obsessive focus on their need to sell.

Every sales person I talk to is obsessed on their targets and goals, “I’ve got to make this many calls; I’ve got to have this many meetings: I’ve got to make this many proposals: I’ve got to close this many deals to make my number…….”

If a sales person is behind, the intensity of focus (at least for people who aren’t losers) gets far more intense—sometimes, with added pressure from management, sales people even become panicked.

The focus is on selling and meeting that need to sell.

Ironically, however high our sense of urgency is, we will achieve nothing if the customer doesn’t have a need to buy–or we can create one they own.

Our drive to sell creates all the wrong behaviors. We prospect the wrong accounts, searching to find someone who will respond. We chase after deals that aren’t real, wasting our time, diverting us from high quality deals. We fill our pipelines with opportunities that are solely wishful thinking, and push and push and push.

Selling shouldn’t be that hard!

In fact selling becomes easier, it is never easy, if we just focus our time on finding and working with those people or organizations that have a high need to buy!

They may be missing opportunities. They may have problems that are keeping them from achieving their goals. They or their companies may be threatened.

There is a compelling need to change and there are clear consequences to not making that change, as well as not doing so by a specific date.

Sometimes we have to help our customers discover this. Sometimes we have to help them articulate it as their own. Sometimes we have to help customers quantify the impact of doing nothing.

But once we have done that. Once we have a customer with a compelling need to buy, our job is much simpler.

All we have to do is help them them solve their problem!