What need?
Conventional wisdom from people who study B2B buying and/or selling behavior says that success comes when a solution is aligned to the buyer’ “need”. Advice has long been to discover, listen and align to the buyers requirement and needs. Most take this advice on and start the Spanish Inquisition with their own version of SPIN Selling to uncover all these needs with a bunch of fancy questions.
We call it Discovery.
Makes sense in that to align to a need suggests the need is understood by everyone.
The Problem
Most buyers don’t really understand their own need in full so they are not really answering your SPIN questions
Even if they do, alignment doesn’t differentiate you if your competition aligns to their needs too and uses essentially the same Discovery framework
Need, ROI and Value is not the only thing needed to avoid No Decision
The Cause
People are busy and overwhelmed and often struggle to find the time to see the big picture in a way that helps them answer your questions
Most vendors use the same approach, ask the same questions, get the same answers and look absolutely the same to the buyer
People can see the value and still not buy, even when their needs are being met, because what they really need is to feel confident in their ability to be successful
Most vendors are very solution-centric so you can count on being ahead of the pack by starting with your buyers needs…and helping them dig deeper to uncover more.
But the real “need” that is still not being addressed is the buyers need to feel safe in taking on an initiative. They need to feel confident in their ability, with your solution, to achieve the value they now see they can with your solution.
The Solution
Stop showing up with a feature dump, and instead show up with a point of view about how to navigate the evaluation
Do more to help people see their world before they do anything to see yours
Focus as much if not more on HOW to change to achieve the value and give them confidence they can do it
The Questions
How effective do you think your sellers are at uncovering and diagnosing need?
How good are they at giving buyers confidence they need to achieve results with your solution?
How do you think any of this is impacting your current growth curve?
Happy to talk when you are ready and will offer only this.
A traditional approach to sales doesn’t solve any of the above issues.