What’s the objective?

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I’ve noticed a startling trend. Customers have been conditioned to sit through boring, old, and unhelpful presentations, without getting to ask the questions that they want answered…. So why not ask them?

Instead of jumping into your typical sales process (ie. Presenting) take some time to ask a few simple questions.

1. What are you doing currently?

2. What problems were you hoping we could help you solve?

3. How much $ are you wasting by not solving this problem?

4. Are you ready to fix it?

Based upon my experience, and that of many of my successful friends / mentors, if the prospective customer isn’t able to articulate specific answers to these questions chances are that they are just “looking” and not actively trying to find a solution to their problem.

Would you take an appointment with someone that couldn’t help you solve a problem you were having?

I could be wrong, anyone out there have a different opinion?

Is there such a thing as bad business?

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Let me start by saying, yes I know that is a loaded subject for this blog post…. Today I encountered a situation with a potential client, that really made me think, is there such a thing as bad business? This company has been on the verge of making a decision to for the better part of 3 or 4 months. After all of the back and forth Q&A the end result is the customer is demanding a variety of free services that are definitely out of the norm.

I made the decision to that our products and services didn’t directly align with the customers needs, and that we were not in a position to take them on as a client. Both the potential customer, and a member of the sales team were rather upset by this.

Here are a few things to think about:

  1. Customers that are problematic during the sales process, are (typically) even more problematic when they are paying for a service.
  2. The sales process is bi-directional. Just because someone is interested in your products and services doesn’t mean that they are necessarily the right kind of customer for you and your company.
  3. Organizations that have problems making a decision, also typically have problems implementing a solution. Don’t get stuck in a situation where you can’t be successful.

If you disagree I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject.