I had a fascinating conversation with an outstanding sales person today. We were talking about his prospecting challenges. Like all of us, he was struggling to get the engagement he wanted. Let’s call him “Stephen.”
We talked about some of his strategies. He was very focused on the customers and people he was prospecting. He leveraged trade shows to meet people, then followed up with prospecting notes. He researched others, understanding their roles and what their companies did, creating personalized emails. He tried to connect what he learned they were doing with his prospecting efforts.
Stephen read a typical prospecting note to me, “I see you are involved in doing this……, I’d love to talk to you about how our products can help you…..”
I asked him, “I see what you are interested in talking about—your products, how do you know if the customer cares?”
He responded, “Well they should care, they are in our ICP, we sell to all sorts of organizations similar to this organization….”
I repeated my question, “How do you know the customer cares?”
Stephen started muttering to himself, I suspect he was saying something like, “Dave you don’t get it….”
I kept pestering him. “What is he interested in talking about?”
He said, “I don’t know, that’s why I’m prospecting him….?”
I replied, “But your email is focused on what you are interested in, you aren’t asking him what he is interested or cares about.”
One of Stephen’s great qualities is his stubbornness. “But Dave, he should be interested…..?”
I persisted, “Why should he be interested? How do you know if he has the problem? How do you know if he cares? Perhaps he has already solved it….”
He started getting it, he said, “Maybe I should ask him what his challenges are?”
“Oh,” I responded, “I can smell a sales pitch coming when someone prospects me with that question. Why should I respond?”
He was getting frustrated again, “Well you said I should stop pitching and should understand his problems…….”
I asked, “Well my ‘pitch radar’ goes off when I see those emails. I know the sales person wants to pitch me. But let’s imagine he responds and the challenges he suggests are things you can’t do anything about?”
He replied, “That’s easy, I stop prospecting him…”
“But how do you know he might not have the challenge? He didn’t mention it, but he might have the challenge. He may never have realized it is an issue, so you might be missing a tremendous opportunity.”
Stephen hung in, I do admire his stubbornness, “How do I figure it out?”
I asked, “What are the issues, challenges that customers have that might drive the need for your solutions?”
This is where Stephen was so good, he really understood this. 90% of sales people I speak to can’t answer this question, they know what their products do, but they don’t really understand what might drive the need for the products–they force their customers their customers to figure that out.
He responded, “This guy is in this role in this industry. He’s likely to have these 5 challenges….”
I asked, “Why are those important to him?”
Quickly he went through each challenge explaining why they were important, giving me data about the impact of each.
Then I asked, “What if you engaged the person asking about these challenges?”
He brightened up, I think he realized that I wasn’t wasting his time. He said, “I could ask, ‘How are you dealing with this issue……?’ or ‘What’s your experience in addressing this issue…?’ or ‘We are seeing this as an emerging issue, are you seeing the same thing?’ or ……..”
Stephen went on with a number of ideas about how he might elicit whether the customer might have the issue. But then he hesitated, “What if they don’t have any of those issues?”
I thought, “Isn’t that interesting? All your customers bought your solutions because they have those issues. Isn’t it interesting that he doesn’t have the issue? Wouldn’t be interesting to find out why? It would be a great conversation, he may have mis-diagnosed things, or he may identify other issues that he does have……”
We talked a while longer about how he could focus on issues his prospects face. Stephen ended with, “Dave, I think I get it. I should focus my prospecting on things they care about, understanding or helping them understand issues they might be facing…… My products are irrelevant to them until we have identified these critical issues and are interested in learning how they might address them. I should focus on those. As we discuss them it allows me to bridge into how we can help them……”
I’m anxious to see the results Stephen gets from his new prospecting approach. Not everyone will be interested, but I suspect far more will respond. Why? It’s so simple. We are talking to them about what they care about or should in terms relevant to them. We are making the conversation all about them, not about us.
Imagine how things might change if more sellers adopted Stephen’s approach.
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