“Let’s Talk About Me……”

It’s human nature to be self interested. We focus on “our success, our priorities,” and “What happens if I make a mistake?” This operates at personal and organizational levels, “How does our company hit its goals?”

We talk to our customers, about their challenges and problems, but always shape those conversations to lead to a discussion about our products. Discovery becomes a focus on their need for what we sell. Customer experience is “how do you like our product,” not “are you achieving your goals.” Retention focuses on, “Please keep using our product, do you want to buy more seats?”

Even when we try to put the customer at the center of our conversation, it ends up being all about us. “Here’s why they chose us, Here’s what they like about our solutions, Here’s how we’ve helped them be successful…”

It’s natural for us to focus on our interests and our goals.

The problem is, these are irrelevant to everyone else, especially our customers!

As focused as we are on our success, our customers are equally focused on their success. They tend to come from a different point of view:

• “I care about solving my problems, not your product road map.”
• “I’ll buy when I’m ready, not when you need to hit quota.”
• “I’m running a business, not shopping for products”
• “I’m measured on hitting my goals, keeping my team on track—not on how well I use your solutions!”

One pictures us standing on one side of a chasm, our customers on the other. The issue becomes, how do we bridge this, working to achieve our mutual interests?

Unless the customer is very late in the buying process, the job of building that bridge starts with us. How do we do this?

The customer’s self interest has to be the focus of our attention! Some of you might be saying, “But Dave, I need to make my quota!” We should never be calling on anyone that’s outside our ICP. We should have done the research to confirm they might have the challenges we help them address. In doing this, when we focus on the customer’s self interest, the gap between what they are concerned with and our interests is likely to be much smaller.

In your conversations, expand their thinking of what they are trying to achieve. Is there a better way for them to achieve their goals? Are there opportunities they would like to pursue but don’t know how? Are they seeing what you are seeing in the markets, how are they dealing with those? Notice, these conversations still focus on them and what they are trying to achieve. They are not about what you sell.

As you align on their interest, engage them in talking about how they might achieve them. Work with them on how they can achieve these goals. All of a sudden, the conversations change from “us” and “them,” to “we.” Our interests become aligned, trust builds. We are no longer seen as a vendor, rather become collaborators in our shared success.

But sometimes, these discussions go off the rails. Often, it’s driven by our impatience to start pitching. Sometimes, driven by suspicions customers might have, “Where is this going?” Sometimes, each of us feels we are having nice conversations, but for what purpose?

How do we deal with this? Some thoughts:

1. If you sense there is some tension or things are wandering, confront it: “We seem to be going in different directions? Am I missing something, is this useful to you?”
2. Shift your focus back the their priorities. Anchor the customer and yourself around what’s of immediate importance.
3. Slow things down, make sure you aren’t racing ahead of them wanting to present the solution and get the order. Instead, make sure you and the customer are in sync, collaboratively develop a roadmap for going forward together. They actually need this help, they’ve seldom gone through this process before.
4. Make your intentions explicit. You genuinely see an opportunity to help them achieve their goals with your solutions. But the focus is on their success and their ability to achieve their goals. This is a good checkpoint, “Can we figure out if it makes sense to keep talking?”
5. Remember, you only achieve your goals, when the customer achieves theirs. Prioritizing your goals, will never get you back on track.

In the end, if we and our customers work collaboratively in achieving our shared goals, the conversations shift from “me,” to “we.”

Afterword:  This is a stunning AI based conversation about this post.  They take a very interesting twist at the end, looking at how we apply the same principles within our own organizations.  Enjoy!