Don’t Sell Yet

Calls with prospects and clients that occur early in the buying process can be tricky to manage. There is no defined path or working plan yet, and often times the rules and dynamics of the relationship are still being sorted out. It is important to have a plan going into these calls. Regardless of if you have slides or not, you are telling a story, and the part of the story where you unpack the clients problems and their effects on the client’s business is the most important part.

These calls should be close to scripted so that you can be sure of where you are going and how to get there. This doesn’t mean that you have to or should stay on scrip at all times, but it is important to have fully baked language, a plan, and talking points so that you can stay on track. One of the easiest ways to define the steps of a call like this is by using the 4-part story device that I have talked about in earlier articles. You should have a number of different versions of your 4-part story, and you simply pick the proper one for the particular interaction you are having. Once you have established an agenda with the client, preferably prior to the call, you will simply start your 10 minute version, or your 20 minute version, of the story, or whatever makes the most sense for that particular meeting.

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In your 10, or 20, or 30 minute version of the story, especially in a very early stage meeting, you should have a few goals that are very specific.

In part one of the story, you must revisit your research or insights, and earn enough credibility to justify the fact that you have just moved from taking about 1 minute of their time, on a cold call or in an a message, to now talking about 20–30 minutes of their time. Your goal is to prove that you belong in the conversation. Use social proof if you want, but who you work with does not make the case alone. You have to state a point of view and something insightful that proves that you belong in the conversation, and that you, as an individual, are worth their time.

In part two of the story you should expand your discovery with the goal being to understand how the prospect describes and thinks about their problem. The goal is to come to an agreement on problem definition that makes sense as the foundation for the continued conversation.

In part three of your story you should discuss desired outcomes with the goal being to let the client know that there is a path from problem to outcome that is value positive for them, but you should focus on talking about your solutions as little as possible.

Lastly, in part four of your story your goal is to establish next steps, gather validation on your understanding of the problem, and establish the goals of your next interaction with the prospect, who should be involved and what it should look like.

This early stage interaction can occur on the cold call itself, or on any subsequent call early in the buyer’s journey. Regardless, unless you are in an extremely transactional and non-consultative setting, you are NOT selling your product yet. You are establishing credibility, understanding and validating the problem, learning about the desired outcome, and gaining momentum by gathering your first set of agreements from the prospect so that you can move on to more.

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This type of mindset takes patience and resilience. You will get multiple objections, which should not be taken as rejections, and beyond that, you will not be able to close a deal early in the process. Both of those are not only OK, but they are necessary to give you the best opportunity to close down the road. The initial calls are meant to set yourself up for calls down the road. If you pitch your product on the first call, or before deep discovery it is impossible for the client to believe that you have taken their specific problems into account when you do present your solutions. Just think about it for a minute, if you do discovery, and then immediately present solutions, how could you have taken your discovery into account when building the presentation. This means to the client that your presentation was premeditated and not tailored from them.

Clients will however, make it hard for you to do this. They will say things like, “Just show me the slides so I know what you are offering”. But, asking questions and having a real conversation about the client’s problems is better for the relationship, better for the likelihood of a deal, and better for the client as it can align you better with their needs. The default action for the client will be to push you to present and leave so that they can use your presentation information to help make a judgement without having to engage with you, in the moment. It is the same human nature that causes us to text instead of call, and to avoid talking to the human when we can place our order online. You buyer is like everyone else. They want the info now in order to engage later.

The problem for you is if they don’t engage now, they are not actively deciding while you are interreacting with them, so your opportunity to be influential will suffer. That is why it is so important for you to ask the right questions that help you challenge the buyer so that they do engage and move down the decision funnel while you have the opportunity to be influential. The only way to do that is through questions, so let’s talk about good questions for calls early in the buyer journey. I am going to use the SPIN selling methodology (Neil Rakham) for this exercise because it is an excellent way to think about question progression. None of these questions are meant to be asked as is, they are ideas of the types of questions that should be asked in order to encourage your client to truly engage.

Understand the Situation:

• “{Insert research and information you know about the client}, with that, what is the most important part of this problem that you have to solve right now?”

  
  

Your goal with your first set of questions is to establish the situation, and a shared understanding of it. In forget to earn the right to ask questions, and to make the client feel good about sharing with you, you will have to reestablish credibility again as part of this question, but reiterating your information or insights that show that you can add value to the conversation.

Learn about the Problem:

• “How did you determine that to be the biggest priority?”

• What metrics are you using to measure that?”

• “Who is being affected by the problem?”

  
  

The goal with problem questions is to establish a shared definition of the problem(s) that is both cathartic for the client to talk about, and commercially viable for you to spend time on.

Understand what is Inferred by the problem:

• “What do you want this to look like when it is solved?”

• “What problems does this cause from the broader business?”

• “What have you done so far to solve this?”

  
  

The goal with these questions is to broaden scope and more fully define the problem in a way that develops an understanding of how it truly effects the ability of your client firm to operate.

Understand the value equation / Need Vs. Payoff:

• “As you fast forward 90 days, what happens if this is not addressed? What new problems arise?”

• ”Where does this issue rank compared to ______ in terms of need to solve? Where does this issue rank on your priority list relative to other issues if you are thinking about needs a a company-wide level?”

  
  

The goal with the final set of questions is to learn from the client just how important the problem you solve is, and simultaneously to start developing, in your client, their own entrenched belief in its importance.

Have a plan when you call