Recently, I had a fascinating conversation with Dr. Howard Dover about some programs he and Becc Holland are conducting with his students. We talked about some fascinating concepts: Mis-diagnosis and Missed-diagnosis. Both concepts are hugely important, so I need to separate writing about them. So much opportunity is lost, both for sellers and customers, because of diagnostic problems. These tend to fall into two categories: “Mis-diagnoses,” incorrectly identifying the problem/solution; and Missed Diagnoses, not recognizing that something might be changed or improved.
Both represent huge opportunities for all of us. But each requires different approaches with our customers. This article will focus on Missed-Diagnosis, or inciting customers to change. The sister article about Mis-diagnosis, be sure to read that.
Missed diagnoses represent a monstrous opportunity to create value with our customers. Too often, they fail to recognize the opportunity to change. They are so busy doing their jobs, they fail to see there might be a better way of doing things. They may be so committed to the status quo, they fail to recognize the necessity to change. They may be hitting their goals and metrics, blinding themselves to the idea they might be under performing the potential.
Missed diagnoses represent step function opportunities in creating value with our customers. We are helping our customers think differently about their businesses.
Missed diagnoses can fall into several categories.
The first is the failure to recognize there might be a better way to do something. Here customers are operating, they are achieving their goals and see no reasons to change. They don’t perceive any problems. We see this every day, it’s the status quo. It’s the mindset around “If it ain’t broke…..” Customers are prisoners of their own experiences. They may not see the opportunity do change.
The second is related, they may fail to recognize a necessity to change. They are blind to what competitors might be doing. They are blind to the emergence of new competitors/approaches/or solutions.
These two categories are areas where the customer should have recognized the opportunity to change, but has failed to. As sellers we get to help them recognize this. Sometimes it’s showing them what others are doing and what it means. Sometimes it’s through offering insight. Sometimes it’s through questions like, “Have you considered…., What if….., Have you seen this…., What causes you to do things this way….”
To do this, we have to get involved with customers much earlier, inciting them to change. Too often, we engage customers when they have determined a problem and have gone through the problem solving process to determine a solution. When they engage us, they are just choosing between the offerings they will use to solve their problem.
As I mentioned, in this case of Missed Diagnosis, we are educating them, helping them think differently, and inciting them to change. In doing this, we create huge value and trust. These initiatives tend to be very collaborative as we help the customer learn and commit to a change effort.
There’s another category of Missed Diagnosis, that is rare and appeals to a narrower category of customers. It focuses on collaborative innovation. It’s about thinking about things very differently, helping them imagine new possibilities. Only customers who fall into the innovator and early adopter categories are interested in these conversations. And in these opportunities, there are usually no solutions, rather solutions we develop collaboratively with our customers.
These are opportunities for us to learn, to develop new offerings, and to grow, both with that customer and through the customers that will become interested and follow. They are probably less “sales opportunities,” but collaborative projects between two organizations. For example, in the mid-80s I led a team approaching aircraft manufacturers with the questions, “What might happen if you could design/manufacture airplanes digitally?” That drove a revolution in those companies. Design cycles went from 20 years to 5-7 years. Manufacturing cycles could be optimized much more quickly, reducing manufacturing cost and cycle time.
One of my clients had a customer come to them with an idea, “We think this is an important problem/opportunity. We don’t have the answer and neither do you, but we think we can develop the answer together….” Within a year, my client’s customer had transformed their business and my client had a new offering they were bringing to market.
Today, we are seeing AI/ML offering the potential to re imagine both our businesses and those of our customers. Involving them in looking at these innovations present huge opportunity for each of us.
For managers and leaders: Within our own organizations we have similar problems. We face huge challenges with Mis-diagnoses and Missed-diagnoses. So much of what I see impacting selling organizations is the result of Mis-diagnosis. And when I look at opportunities for step function growth or innovation, the failure to exploit them is a result of Missed Diagnoses. They represent such huge opportunities for performance improvement.
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