Every sales organization wants to increase revenue. There are many roads to hitting your number, but the one that will get you there the fastest is the one that’s focused on your buyer. Shift your mindset. Stop thinking like a seller and start thinking like a buyer, especially during key stages of the customer’s buying process. Here are three on-ramps to help guide the customer conversation during critical points of the buyer’s journey.
Articulating Requirements
In early stages of the buying cycle, buyers want to let you know what they need. They want you to understand their pains and business goals. In other words, they have a need to be heard. As a seller, now is the time to uncover these needs and business objectives, by asking great Discovery Questions. Even if it appears that the buyers just want to hear about your capabilities, keep in mind that expressing their needs is really what they care about in this stage.
Evaluating Options
In the next stage of the buying process, buyers are concerned with evaluating alternative solutions. They care about options. That’s why as a seller, you need to understand your competition. Differentiate your offerings in a way that speaks to the pain points and business objectives that you uncovered during discovery.
Committing to Solution
In this final stage of the buying process, buyers are concerned with minimizing risk. They want to lessen the risk of making a bad decision or paying too much. The buyer needs proof you’ve done this before. The best kind of proof is from other customers who can speak to the tangible results of your solution.
Remember, if you successfully map your solutions to the buyer’s pains and provide proof that you can live up to your commitments, you will find yourself in the sweet spot of negotiating on value, rather negotiating on price.
