The client has a problem and we fix it, our goods or services are delivered, outcomes are achieved and everybody wins. Problems and issues are a bit like icebergs though – there is a lot more going on below the surface than can be spotted from the captain’s bridge. The salesperson’s role is to go after the whole iceberg and not just the obvious bit floating above the waterline.
The standard sales interview is based on two models comprising the outer circles surrounding a bull’s-eye. The extreme periphery is the “telling is selling” model. The second model, the inner circle adjoining the bull’s-eye, is the solution model of providing outcomes that best serve the client, based on what the client has understood is their problem.
Aligning the fix with the client need in the solution model is the mark of the semi-professional. There is nothing wrong with this model but what are the rockstar sales masters doing? Through their questioning skills, they are on a mission to try and find what nobody else is seeing, including the client. A truly magical client statement would be: “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that or allowed for it!”. Now that is the bull’s-eye we want right there. The salesperson who can provide that type of perspective, alerting clients to over-the-horizon issues, provides such value, that they quickly become the client’s trusted business partner.
When salespeople pick up vital strategic and tactical commercial intelligence. Researching various client’s problems, experiences, triumphs and disasters is valuable – but only if you know how to process the detail. It is very rare for company personnel to do study tours of totally unrelated businesses. Salespeople however are floating around businesses and therefore able to see options hidden to others. The ability to select and apply a particularly successful solution in a different context is a commercially valuable skill.
How can salespeople get that skill? Take what you have seen working elsewhere for one client, in a different company or industry and then apply it for your current client. Another way to get that skill is to do practical research. Based on what you already know, build up a point of view on an industry, check it against what your clients are telling you (or conduct company surveys).
We won’t always be able to conjure up a bull’s-eye. However, in trying to do so, our aspirations, general direction and thinking will be correct. In sales, the inner-most circle, the big red bull’s-eye, leads straight to the winner’s circle and that is where we must be. Let’s make “insight” our springboard to success.
