3 Ways to Excite Your Buyers
Most prospects are content to stay with the status quo because the personal risk associated with attempting change looms large.
This is especially true if the need they have is something technical, like the monitoring of logs or single sign on. Intellectually they know things could be improved, but this is not a visceral or emotional pain point for them.
A good salesperson can use questions to help their prospect connect the dots and understand the positive impacts of a new solution.
Organizational Impact
The specialist who performs a technical function may or may not connect her personal mission to the organization’s purpose. If she has not, when she recognizes the organizational impact she may feel more compelled to act.
From sales call recordings, I have heard great salespeople use carefully crafted questions to facilitate connecting:
- Log management to an insurance company’s main competitive differentiator; customer service.
- A pizza maker’s ability to satisfy peak weekend demand instead of failing to fulfill orders, angering customers, and truncating revenue.
Financial Impact
While many specialists do recognize the organizational impact, most have not translated that to financial impact. If the cost of the status quo is not known, asking the boss for unplanned money will appear unjustified and intimidating.
Getting to a clear understanding of the cost of doing nothing is empowering and compels action.
From sales call recordings I have heard skilled salespeople ask prepared questions that help calculate the cost of doing nothing:
An engineer at a global German manufacturer said he didn’t think in terms of cost and was clearly uncomfortable talking about money. But after a few questions asked by a salesperson who was willing to be vulnerable first, the engineer overcame his reluctance and created a conservative cost estimate of eight million euros per year if no action was taken.
He believed the numbers because he did the math. He was confident the numbers were conservative and that he could justify them to his boss. He also took a step toward advancing his career when he overcame his fear of talking about money.
Personal Impact
However, the most powerful motivation is personal impact.
I listened to a discovery call during which a hospital IT person came to understand that a single sign-on would save the hospital clinical staff time so they can spend more time with patients.
While this had a big impact for the organization, the personal impact is that he could reduce the number of complaints he had to deal with from doctors and nurses.
Note: These outcomes can only be achieved through expert questioning.
You may understand the impact immediately and could tell the buyer what they can expect. But telling them doesn’t engage the brain in the same way.
Statements generate resistance because they are accusatory. Questions generate self-reflection. Help the buyer come to their own conclusion and you gain an advocate that is excited to move the deal forward.
Download my list Best of Discovery Call Questions and get access to a list of questions to effectively help the buyer understand the impact of their need.