I’d spent a long day doing deal reviews and a few critical call planning reviews. Everyone was well prepared—part of it was they knew they had to be. Apparently, my reputation for being tough had preceded me.
The reviews were filled with strategies, goals, action plans. Many had deep competitive analysis with plans to overcome the competition.
The discussions with team members and managers focused on “What are we selling, When, How Much Will We Get, What are the risks, When can you commit to the forecast, When do we need to ship, Can we upsell them, What discounting do we need to be prepared to give, ……”
In listening, the customer seemed almost incidental to the conversation.
Don’t get me wrong, the sales people would describe the customer, the people involved and so forth, but everything was done in the context of what is was the sales people were selling and what they needed to do to get an order.
But the conversations weren’t about the customer, but about what we needed to do to/with the customer.
And perhaps that’s why we struggle so much with our deals. Think about it a moment, if we develop and execute the very best in our sales strategies (and too few do), why is it that so many deals end with no decision made? Why is it that win rates are plummeting? Possibly it isn’t about us and what we do, but more about the customer doing their jobs of buying!
It IS all about the customer and what they are trying to achieve.
Perhaps we change our deal reviews to focus on the customer, their buying, and our role in supporting/accelerating their process.
Maybe we look at why the customer believes they must change, what the customer sees as the consequences of taking no action.
We might want to focus on where they want to go, what they want to achieve–making sure we are the best at helping the do that (otherwise we are wasting their and our time.).
We know the customer will struggle with buying–not because they don’t want to buy or can’t find the money, but in managing the buying process itself. There are different people, differing priorities, lots of agendas–all built on shifting sands. Helping them reach a decision, creating value in their decision-making process enables them to achieve their goals. If they don’t achieve theirs, then it’s impossible for us to achieve ours.
I could go on, but you get the point. If we make our deal and opportunity strategies more about the customer, less about us, we make the customer more interested in working with us simply because of our focus. As a result, our deal reviews and strategy sessions become more about the customer journey and helping them complete the journey.
The most effective and efficient way for us to achieve our goals is when we stop making it about us, but instead focus on making it all about the customer and their buying journey.
Dave, your post led me to the deeper question of why salespeople focus on what they want to do with their customer instead of The Customer and what the customer is trying to achieve.
It’s human nature to view things from our perspective. As a physicist, you understand that everyone and everything, from a relative perspective, is at the center of the universe. Most everyone strolling under the moon has felt like the moon follow them. This is why people think inside the box. This is why sales and marketing folks write me-centric messages. We can’t help ourselves; it’s our nature.
I’ve battled self-centeredness my entire life. I’m a selfish guy by nature. Fortunately, my wife and children love me anyway. But clients would never have loved me the way they do had I not made them, their needs and wants the center of our dealings. It takes me a tremendous amount of effort.
Understanding why helped me develop a strategy. In addition to general call and longer-range planning, I practice(ed) conversations in my head. Imagined possible contingencies and unexpected questions, and drilled customer focused responses. I was in constant training. Catching me talking to myself; lips moving, gears cranking in my head and smoke coming out of my ears was normal.
When I moved into sales management, the customer-centric mindset became the centerpiece of my training and coaching. Most of my salespeople didn’t understand the importance of a customer focus due to previous training and being human. Explaining why we do what we do and how changing that improved their sales and commissions inspired them to focus on their customer and what their customer wanted to achieve.
You could say that focusing on your salespeople and what they want to achieve trains them to do the same with their customers.
As always, you inspire great thought and action.
Gary, you always add such a thoughtful perspective and get me to up my game. You cover a lot in this comment–I’ll actually write some posts on this.
Being self centered isn’t inconsistent with being customer focused. In some real sense, we are driven by what we want to achieve. The trick is, that we don’t get there unless our customers get there. So by focusing on our customers, we actually position ourselves to get what we want much more easily and effectively.
Likewise, as managers, our sales people are our customers. So we should treat them just as we would our customers—understand them, focus on them, help them achieve, which enables managers to achieve.