During yesterday’s opening keynote speech at Breakaway 2011, Sheahan said the biggest obstacles in the selling process are often wrong assumptions made by sellers.
“It’s often not the buyer getting in the way of the seller exploiting the opportunity, but the seller not fully understanding the opportunity,” said Sheahan, founder and CEO of ChangeLabs.
“Often there is misalignment between what sellers offer and what buyers need. Before you get tactical, ask yourself if you’re making the right assumptions about your customers. I would put to you that success is less about the tactical decisions, but rather your ability to see the money otherwise you rob yourself of opportunity.”
He offered a few examples of assumptions that can block sales.
“Buyers think like us.”
For example, a technology solution provider talks about cloud computing when all the customer is concerned about is “get my sales team the information they need when they need it.”
Sheahan noted that more technology buying is done today by line of business executives with very little technical expertise, and not through IT departments.
“Technology to business people is a means to an end,” he said. “It’s the business they’re interested in, not the technology. Customers will look for IT partners who can help them solve business problems.”
“Details drive differentiation.”
Too many details can lead to disagreement and disengagement, according to Sheahan. When speaking with customers, he advised the audience to focus more on the abstract than the details. The more detailed the conversation, the more likely disagreements will occur. Instead, take an abstract concept and package it in a unique and narrow way that’s targeted to the buyer.
“Market moves slowly.”
“Markets move slowly until they don’t,” Sheahan said. Instead, they reach a tipping point and explode. Companies that wait for a market to explode are too late. You’ll be too far behind the competition to catch up.
Companies need to focus on four areas: customer expectations, innovation, competitive advantage and the fact that times have changed.
Sheahan also proposed a better way for technology providers to speak with their customers. He suggests asking the following questions:
- What drives your team crazy?
- What areas of your business present an opportunity to drive down cost?
- What business value do you want out of this relationship?
- How will you know what we do together is working
At the end of the day, the solution provider’s job is to uncover the customer’s business needs and pull together the pieces of technology that can address that business need.
