Many years ago I learned the hard way that customers don\u2019t really want to buy anything. They don\u2019t have any interest in the products and services that we sell, so trying to find customers that want our products or services is a losing battle. Instead, we need to find a customer who has an interest in attaining the business outcomes that can be achieved using our products and services.Very little of what is sold is an end to itself; it\u2019s more a means to an end. Customers don\u2019t buy our products and services because they want to use them, they want to put them to use in order to accomplish something. There\u2019s a saying that illustrates this: last year millions of electric drills were sold. Not a single person who bought one wanted a drill; what they wanted was a hole! This can be applied to practically anything that is sold. In fact, no one wants to buy sales training either. When our clients hire us for sales training it\u2019s not training that they want, it\u2019s increased revenue. Sales training is just necessary to achieve the objective of improved sales results.I encourage you to make a list of the specific problems that your company can solve and the business outcomes that you can help your customers achieve. Start by thinking of the goals and results you\u2019ve helped other customers achieve. Next, get really good at asking questions about those things rather than talking about the products and services themselves. Questions such as:<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve met with other companies in your industry who have this problem, do you ever experience this?\u201d\u201cIs this an issue at your company?\u201d\u201cHow big of an issue is this?\u201d\u201cHow often is this occurring?\u201d\u201cWhat\u2019s the cost to your business when this problem occurs?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Explore the existence of a disparity such as a business problem that\u2019s causing pain or a business outcome that they want to achieve. A business outcome is a goal, objective, or initiative and usually something that they are already emotionally invested in. For example – wanting to grow their business, or increase operations throughout without adding head count. Find out what they want to achieve that your products or services can make possible. Then, sell the solution to that problem where your offering is simply a means to an end.Rather than talk about features, functions, and competitive advantages about your products and services, learn to ask questions about the problems you can solve and the outcomes you can help your clients achieve and see if they have an interest in that. When we help solve problems they already have or achieve goals they already want to achieve, we don\u2019t have to sell them anything at all. We simply provide a solution that they\u2019re already looking for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Many years ago I learned the hard way that customers don\u2019t really want to buy anything. They don\u2019t have any interest in the products and services that we sell…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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