It’s SKO season, yesterday I was leading a discussion with a great sales team. One of the sellers asked a question about dealing with customer questions and queries about the products, particularly deeply technical questions.
As we spoke, it struck me how we revel in these questions. Customers asking us about the product capabilities, drilling deeply into what the products and solutions do. These are the discussions we strive to get since it is all about us and what we sell.
But are they asking us the right questions?
When we look at the data on No Decision Made and Buyer Regret, we know how much our customers struggle with complex B2B change and buying initiatives. They don’t know how to buy. They lack confidence in what they are doing and whether they are doing the right thing. We talk about decision confidence, FOMU, FOFU, and regret.
While we want them to engage us in discussions about our products, perhaps we create the greatest value by hitting the “Pause” button, assessing whether they are asking us the right questions and developing the understanding and confidence that’s most important to them and their success.
If they have very little experience in buying these solutions, it may be better to back them up, asking them about what they are trying to achieve? For example:
- What are the issues that are causing them to look at a change?
- What are they trying to achieve in making the change, why is this important, what happens if the don’t change or if they make the wrong decision?
- What has been their experience in making these changes before?
- Are they asking themselves the right questions about the problem and the change initiative? Have they done their homework? Do they have the right people involved in the change initiative?
When customers with little experience with these change initiatives call, we create the greatest value by helping them ask the questions that are most important to their success—and those are seldom about what they are buying.
I suspect, many reading this may be saying, “Dave, why are you slowing us down. They are asking about our products, that’s what we want to talk to them about, what’s up? Why shouldn’t we be answering those questions?”
I keep going back to the data we know about decision confidence and buyer regret. I go back to the data on how buying cycles are getting longer, customers are uncertain, they wander, they shift priorities, they struggle with getting alignment, they start, stop, and too often, fail.
We’ve seen when we shift selling strategies, to focusing on building customer confidence–throughout the process, and helping them effectively, efficiently, and confidently navigate the process 3 things happen:
- Trust skyrockets, as a result win rates sky rocket.
- No Decision Made, plummets simply because we focus on building their confidence in what they are doing.
- And, counterintuitively, buying cycles reduce by 30-40% because we are helping them navigate the process efficiently and effectively.
We see all sorts of research and have experience with the concept of “slowing down to speed up.” We create the greatest value with our customers, when we work with them, slowing them down to build their understanding and confidence, then helping them navigate the process much faster.
Helping your customer ask the right questions often means not answering the questions they ask, but redirecting them to something more important.
Afterword: For more information about our Business Focused Selling approaches, pleas reach out. Implement these, see your results skyrocket and your relationships with your customers improve.
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