How Good are Your Kick-Starting Skills?

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Let’s face it: calling on Prospects is not easy. You already know the answer when you ask how content they are with your competitor. Why should they change? They may have been loyal to your competitor for years. And your Prospect understands that no supplier is perfect, so if something goes wrong, that doesn’t automatically mean they are looking at replacing your competitor. In most cases, they prefer a fix over a change.

Asking a dozen questions or leading with your solution right out of the starting blocks will not create the Prospect’s interest. Comparing your company’s capabilities to the competitor’s will also fall on dead ears. So why should the Prospect listen to you? What guarantee do they have that you are more perfect? In their eyes, you are not.

However, they would listen to something they did not know and is relevant to their business challenges:

Our job is to share information that customers most need – but are least likely to find on their own

This can be an insightful article, a white paper or industry news you picked up in a published paper. But do not forget, the bigger the customer’s company, the higher the chance that one of the Buying room stakeholders has accessed the same information. Still, that is ok because your discussion on the impact of that new information becomes more relevant and can even lead to an intense debate on what the customer could do to take strategic advantages and stay ahead of their competitors.

The best information customers need – but cannot find on their own- are your own stories. Your experience meeting with so many other customers has taught you what works well and what doesn’t. If you think about it, how many similar customers does your Prospect meet per day, week, or month? Not many. On the other hand, you meet many and become an expert in trends, challenges and risks from real-life customer examples. Convert these into impactful storytelling to see the Buying process kick-started right before your eyes.