Hey, Scott from The Sales Mastermind here. Today’s edition only takes 7 minutes.
Before buyers can buy, they know precisely, clearly, and without ambiguity what they’re committing to.
When you confuse your buyers, they can’t/won’t/don’t buy.
This week, we’ll cover four common confusions and how to avoid them.
Before we start, I apologise for missing last week’s newsletter. I’ve created a backlog, so newsletters are available in the future.
TLDR:
Story Time
Confusion #1: What are they buying
Confusion #2: How will they measure success?
Confusion #3: Compelling Event
Confusion #4: How do they buy?
Homework: Pipeline Reviews
Story Time: In 2021, while renting a furnished flat, we wanted to throw away this horrible shelf underneath the bathroom sink:
A flatmate sent an email to our landlord asking the following:
Please confirm if the white bathroom toiletry stand (pictured above) is part of the inventory.
The initial question was irrelevant to what we wanted. We didn’t care if it was part of the inventory. We wanted it gone.
What ensued was email after email of confusion.
Finally, we sent:
Could you please ask the landlord if throwing this white thing out is okay? It’s old, rusted and we don’t use it.
The landlord answered immediately once we had a clear ask, a clear outcome, and a clear yes/no decision.
We threw out the horrible shelf that week.
Confusion #1: What are they buying?
Many deals end before they even begin because the business outcome is unclear.
Your product solves many different things. But nobody buys “many solutions.” They want something to help with the biggest, most consequential problems.
It’s vital to understand the priority business problems. Then, your job is to explain how you solve these main problems.
The second part of this confusion is to find out what the individual you are talking to wants.
A business coach friend used to say:
“I don’t sell coaching. On one call, I am a real estate agent. Next, I will be a boat salesman. And on the next call, I am a travel agent.”
He is listing what his buyers want to buy, personally.
To understand if you have clarity on what they want to buy, answer the following:
- What are the top 3 business goals this company is struggling with?
- How does my product help solve these challenges?
- If they had to explain your solution to their boss/colleague/friend, what would they say?
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Lastly, what does my buyer want, personally?
- Universal examples: finish work on time or spend more time with family/kids
- For business owners: more profit or additional capability
- For employees: promotion/bonus or improved team experience
You can overcome most obstacles when buyers and sellers are completely aligned on the outcome.
Alternative examples in newsletter 5.
Confusion #2: How will they measure success?
Once you’ve nailed “What are they buying?”, you have a new problem: how to measure it.
Most buyers are buying a feeling or an emotion. Maybe they want to spend more time with their kids or finish work at 5 pm (not 10 pm).
Even if they want something more quantitative, like more profit or sales, how much is enough?
Would $1 more move the needle? Probably not.
How about $1,000,000 extra? For a small business, most likely. For a listed company, it’s not worth the effort of a new project for “only” $1m.
Without a measurement for success, you’ll fall into any of 3 traps:
- The emotion is too vague. Your buyer can’t connect the feeling to the real world.
- The pain they’re trying to solve might not be enough for the price you’re about to present.
- Your buyer will be unable to get their team/stakeholders onside as they can’t clearly articulate the value.
To understand the measurement of success, ask yourself:
- What metric are they using to measure the current challenges?
- What is the expected improvement in this metric?
- Is this improvement both realistic and believable?
- Who is impacted by these metrics?
- Do all stakeholders agree to the above measurement and expected outcome?
Confusion #3: Compelling Event (Why now? Why not 6 months ago? Why not next year?)
As you’ve read in previous newsletters, “Buyers buy on their timelines, not ours.”
Confusions #1 and #2 can be combined as the “Compelling Reason” to buy.
Next is to understand your buyer’s “Compelling Event.”
Most of your market should have the problems you solve. At any given time, for whatever reason, most don’t want to solve these problems.
Jeremy Minner presents a good rule of thumb:
Only ~10% of your market is open to buying now. 90% are not.
Problems don’t start overnight. For example, a business owner doesn’t instantly go from 5pm finishes to 10pm finishes.
Therefore, your buyer must know why they want to take action now.
It could be anything from a business owner’s partner telling them they’re heading to divorce unless they spend more time with the kids to the same business owner being sick of having nothing left for themselves after sorting payroll.
Just as problems don’t appear overnight, your solution won’t be instant.
The compelling timeline needs to allow enough time to get a deal done, yet be near enough to create urgency.
Good questions for Confusion #3 are:
- Why is my buyer receptive now? Why not 6 months ago? Why not next year?
- If the success metric were achieved in February/June/October, what would that get my buyer?
- Can we align this project with any upcoming life or company event in the next week, month, quarter, or year?
Beware, “As soon as possible.” ASAP is NOT a timeline. Only accept a specific date or month.
Confusion #4: How do they buy?
A buyer wanting something is only the first step. Actually buying it is a whole different thing.
Confusion #4 exists because your buyers may not have bought your type of product before. Part of your job is to teach them how to buy from you.
Think about your most complex deal. Always start with the worst-case, most complex scenarios possible.
Make a list of all stakeholders and every step you (or your buyer) has to take. Then, communicate with your buyer early.
Sometimes, you simply need a working credit card and 10 minutes.
In other cases, you’ll need sign off from:
- A legal team
- A security team
- A procurement specialist
- A signatory whom you’ll never meet
- A buying committee that suddenly appear
- I almost forgot the operation lead who is saying “yes”
At this point, you need to answer the following questions:
- What was the process last time they bought something like this? Which stakeholders were involved? Is this project being any different, or, would it be roughly the same?
- Who needs to be involved and sign off on this project?
- What approvals, budget, operational, legal, security, procurement, etc could slow this project?
If you can teach your buyer to buy, you’ll be head and shoulders above 95% of sellers on the planet.
Homework: Pipeline Reviews
If you want to put the above into action, open up your pipeline and look at every deal to answer the following:
- What is their Compelling Reason to buy? (See Confusions #1 & #2) Is this a strong enough reason?
- What is their Compelling Event? (See Confusion #3) Why THAT timeline? What is this tied to?
- What steps have we completed for them to buy? (See Confusion #4) And what steps remain for them to buy?
Go deal by deal.
If you can answer the above, you’re close to winning a new customer.
If you struggle with any answer, that deal is at risk.
Be honest with yourself.
I often see deals with surface-level reasons to buy or timelines with nothing backing them.
These are the worst, as you’re kidding yourself if there is even a deal here in the first place. Let alone a deal that will close.
Let me know what you think! it to a friend
Until next week,
Scott Cowley
PS If you're ready, I have just started conducting:
Sales Tear Downs
Is your business closing some deals, but not enough? I work with many sales leaders to do a top to bottom tear down of what is working, what isn't and what to do about it. Sound interesting?
(Next opening 11th December)
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