Since we’ve added a lot of followers and followees on Twitter, I’ve seen a lot of interesting items. I saw this one from Gartner with some “anti-resolutions.”
The post here is how salespeople should say “We designed it to do that” and not “You can use it to do that.” I don’t want to get too deep in it (customers do so many things that it can be hard to say this every time they ask for something) – I want to focus on a key point I took away from it.
I am proud to say that I actually said the words “We built it for that” to a prospect. It was even true. We were going to market with a product, and we just did not have success with it. I sat in an office with someone who said, “Can’t just add “this” to the product and take away “that?” We kicked it around and actually did it.
We then baked all that messaging into our sales plan and started using the messaging. What worked best was literally saying the words exactly as our customer said them to us. It seemed too simple:
- Listen to your customers carefully and clearly
- Give them what they want in the product
- Repeat your customer’s words to other people
- Say, “We built it for that” when they confirm that they need it
It seems kinda silly to write this so plainly, but I rarely saw this approach in a lot of companies I worked at. A lot of companies wanted to prove something to the market – they usually ended up being proved wrong.
The approach is 100% customer-centric, so try it out sometime. Listen to them carefully – make sure they see you understand – get them to reaffirm what they need – then say, “We built it for that!”
It feels good…
I’m not sure that we are actually saying the same thing. Salesmen should only say “we designed it for that” when it is actually the case. That also sounds obvious, but when a product conceivably could be stretched and twisted to serve a particular need, salespeople will too often sell that product to the customer, or try to convince analysts that it really is in that market.
I used the example of using a heavy duty flashlight to drive in a nail, but I’ve also seen simple discussion forums sold as a document management platform, HTML editors sold as CRM systems, mashup tools sold as complete portal development environments.
I have also encountered sales people who tell me that No, this is not the right product for what you need to do. Those are the ones who earn my respect, and later business.
I hear you – my post above was meant for salespeople to listen to their customers way before they ever need to make the statement. It is amazing to me how we in sales/marketing focus more on our language than our customer’s language. Most of the time, they can tell you (if you listen carefully) what they need.
Frankly, I’ve also struggled with analyst definitions at time as well. I understand the need to generalize markets, but customers and products do not always fit in.
I really believe you are stronger as a salesperson (meaning that you will sell more and be successful) when you are clear about things your product does not do. Software buyers are more mature now, and they can tell fads from what the business really needs. The fads in IT trends often cause this kind of selling when people are jumping into a new area.
Thanks for the comment – I enjoyed the anti-resolutions! I’m going to make it a point to tell someone what our product does not do this week!