Selling with Insight Flashcards
To develop a mastery of the concepts to support our "Selling with Insights" program, and position myself as an authority on the topic.
Explain the “Sales Conversation Pendulum”
Being successful in sales requires you to adapt fluidly in conversation with your customer. When you think about the types of conversations sales people have with customers, it typically swings between asking your customer questions to seek or confirm your understanding of their situation, and giving your customer information to seed new ideas, change their mindset and ultimately make a good decision. In the best case, a good customer conversation swings back and forth like a pendulum in a productive exchange of ideas that arrives at a win-win outcome.
On what side of the “Sales Conversation Pendulum” should I start?
A sales conversation can start on either side of the pendulum. If you have new insight to share with your customer, such as a significant innovation, then you can lead with that insight. However, to do this, you really need to know your customer because if you lead with insight without checking that the insight is relevant to them you’ll end up wasting their time and losing credibility.
When we work with clients, we typically start by helping them learn question-led dialogue first. From our experience, asking good questions and thinking from your customer’s perspective is the more difficult behavior to change. We find that when they have a good foundation in question-led consultative dialogue, they will be more successful when it comes time to transition to insight-led dialogue.
We also find that without a good foundation in question-led dialogue, it is easy to revert into an insight pitch. From the customer’s perspective, it comes across self-serving, similar to the ole product pitch.
Why is communicating insights and the value of innovation to customers so challenging?
Well, there are several reasons.
- People are skeptical of scientific claims, especially if those claims run counter to their values and beliefs. It suggests that reasoning is suffused with emotion. We push threatening information away, and we pull friendly information forward. This is explained in a great article called “The Science of Why we Don’t Believe Science”.
- Trust wains when we are overloaded with new information. Often we communicate insights through a process that overloads our customer with information. Research suggests that information overload leads to a condition of distrust of the information being presented. Remember the old saying “Bullshit Baffles Brains”.
- People don’t trust you. I believe that trust must be earned, and this takes time and effort. Even if you believe that people are predisposed to trust, they will quickly form an opinion of you – especially if you make a mistake. These include: not being prepared, being presumptuous, being self-centered, being disorganized, being distracted, talking too much and listening too little, not being transparent.
- Change is threatening. People have a lot vested in the way they currently do things. They may have invested in infrastructure, process and training. Think about how they feel when you come in and tell them they need to change. It means you are introducing a lot of work and a lot of risk into their lives. It is understandable that they may resist your new thinking.
What are the benefits of selling with insight?
It is generally accepted that in this day and age customers are armed with lots information on challenges, opportunities and potential solutions, and that they don’t engage with sales reps until they are well along in their buying process. Selling with insight enables you to create demand by seeding new ideas your customers might no have considered. It also enables you to disrupt how they currently think about an issue, and lead them to a solution that enables you to better differentiate your capabilities.
