Are You Trying Too Hard to Solve Your Customer’s Problems?
How about this for a sales tip: “Stop selling and stop solving.”
Stop selling, stop solving.
Stop. Selling. Stop. Solving.
What?! Sounds absurd, right? We are salespeople for crying out loud. Selling and solving is what we do, it’s what we live for!
I get it but hear me out.
Okay, I’m not actually telling you not to sell. And I’m not truly suggesting that you should stop helping people solve their problems altogether.
But I am imploring you to stop selling and solving SO DANG QUICKLY!
Most salespeople suffer from a terrible affliction that I call “let-me-fix-it-itis”. This horrible disease typically renders you incapable of truly understanding the customer’s problem by causing you to prematurely jump to solutions.
And if you do not TRULY understand your customer’s problem in the first place, then the solution you jump to will likely appear insufficient, absurd or even completely inappropriate.
Let me give you a couple of short examples:
Salesperson: “So, what is wrong with your current X”?
Buyer: “Oh, it’s just really old!”
Salesperson: “Well, let me just tell you, all of ours are new. Brand new. Come on, I’ll prove it to you!”
Salesperson: “Tell me about what you are hoping to get with your new X”?
Buyer: “A warranty.”
Salesperson: “A warranty. We have a variety of warranty programs. Why don’t you sit down right here and I’ll show you all the paperwork on our various warranties.”
Do you see what happened in these very common scenarios?
As soon as the customer offers one piece of information, the salesperson makes assumptions and immediately moves into selling and solving mode.
And do you know what happens when we start selling and solving too quickly?
The buyer stops talking (not good). The buyer often stops listening (also not good).
The conversation frequently ends with the buyer saying, “Thanks for your time. I’ll let you know,” and we never hear from them again because we were selling them the wrong product due to lack of deeper discovery skills (very, very bad).
Instead of selling and solving, I encourage you to start listening and learning. And that starts with drawing out the discovery process into a longer conversation.
You see, most salespeople ask perfectly fine discovery questions up front. But most salespeople also fail to dig deeper once the customer offers their first answer.
Here are a couple of short examples of what this conversation can look like if you draw out the discovery process:
Salesperson: “So, what is wrong with your current X?”
Buyer: “Oh, it’s just really old!”
Salesperson: “Got it. How old is old? What’s the problem with ‘old’ here?”
Salesperson: “Tell me about what you are hoping to get with your new X?”
Buyer: “A warranty.”
Salesperson: “That makes perfect sense. Can you tell me more about which part of the warranty is most important to you?”
Here is your challenge: test yourself to see how long deep can go in a discovery conversation without selling and/or solving. It is harder than you may think!
Your will probably feel compelled to interject at every point – don’t!
Take the time to listen. Take the time to learn. That’s when you get the chance to change someone’s world.
