It’s only Wednesday and already, I’ve had conversations with 5 different teams on the same issue. They had strong deals, great interest from the customers, pricing had been worked out. They were waiting for the final decision, some already spending their expected commissions. And then things went quiet. Their customers stopped responding. These forecasted deals suddenly slipped away.
As they walked through things, they talked about how interested the customers were, how they could see the impact of implementing the solutions. They had preliminary pricing discussions, no significant objections from customers. They even started discussing roll-out and implementation. They thought they had it all covered. They couldn’t understand how their customers had been so interested, then went dark.
After reviewing everything they had done, I asked one question. “Did they ever tell you why they needed to do it now?”
There were pauses in each conversation, inevitably, the question arose, “If they didn’t need it now, why were they talking to us?”
I responded, “There could be all sorts of reasons. They weren’t playing games with you. They were probably sincerely interested and wanted to do something. But did you ask them why they needed to do it now?”
Regardless how strong our solutions are, how much value they can produce, the problems they solve, unless the customer has a COMPELLING reason to do something now, it’s highly unlikely they will actually do it. It joins their lists of all sorts initiatives and “critical to consider,” but until it becomes the most important thing for them to do now, there’s that high risk of doing nothing.
It’s not FOMU, it may even never be something the customer is not really conscious of. It is probably still important, but their attention has shifted.
We talk constantly about the consequences of inaction, their change intent. But if that change intent isn’t front and center of every meeting we have. If the urgency isn’t constantly reconfirmed. If it isn’t one of the most important things for the customer to take action on now, there is a high probability customers’ attentions will be shifted to something else.
The lives of our customers, even our own lives, is a constant juggling and shifting of priorities. What was important yesterday, has been displaced by something else today. And that will be replace by another thing tomorrow.
Our challenge is not about keeping the value of our solutions front and center in the customers’ minds, our challenge is to keep the urgency of the change front and center in their minds.
What do we do?
It starts with qualification. If the customer cannot articulate a compelling need to change, identifying the consequences of not changing, and identifying when they need to have that change in place–as much as a customer might respond to our discovery, presentations, demos, and proposal, the deal is not a qualified deal. Qualification is not about interest, it’s about change intent.
Through the buying process, we must constantly reconfirm, and where possible amplify the compelling need to change. Often, in the buying process, with the customer, we discover more, we can increase the sense of urgency. Our discussions can’t be, “Is this still important?” But we need the customer to articulate, why it’s urgent. As things slip in the buying process, alarm bells about the urgency of change should be going off? “You seemed to have a high urgency to get something in place by this date. But things seem to be slipping. Has something changed? What can we do to achieve your original goal?”
Every day something slips, they lose something. Do they understand this? Do they understand the impact and the consequences?
Deals don’t fall about because the customer doesn’t see the value. They fall apart because the urgency to change has been displaced. Our focus must keeping the urgency of the change front and center in the customers’ minds.
Afterword: Here is the AI generated discussion of this post. Again, it’s outstanding, Enjoy!
It happened to me this week. I learned exactly what your wrote, Dave. Their priorities had changed. They’re still interested in my solution, but just not right now.
Sales is hard. Very hard…