In the new way of selling, customer interest is created when you come with something insightful to their table. You provide new, valuable information that shines a different perspective on their challenges. That insight evolves for the customer into wondering if not making a change will be a risk to their business. At that stage, unfortunately, many salespeople jump immediately to selling the good old Features, Advantages and Benefits – not being aware they have just lost the most important momentum of the sale. To effectively progress with winning new business, you need to continue sharing insights to keep the buyer at the tip of their chair: you need different insights per buying phase.

Selling is helping

Why is this leap to selling FABs so easily made? The answer is simple: we were trained to do so. “Selling” is often associated with “Benefits” or “Making a difference”, and we default to that because you sell what you know well. But in selling with the buyer’s perspective, selling is helping. You need to help the customer discover why they need to progress to the next buying stage at every buying phase. Unfortunately, jumping a step often results in misalignments in the conversation and, most likely, objections to progress.

let the buyer do the discovery

Salespeople need to become more effective in the Change to What? buying phase before selling their solutions. Share insights on why their current set-up will not deliver the results they are looking for. Help and engage the buying group to determine the ideal solution criteria to meet their business objectives. Sharing stories of similar customers in similar situations and defining the quantifiable value of changing will prepare the customer to discover that you are uniquely positioned to deliver the ideal solution.

improve your effectiveness

For decades we have been looking in sales for more efficiency gains. Now it is time to improve your sales effectiveness. First, let the customer discover why they need to change and what needs to be changed before changing to who. The key to greater effectiveness is to deliver different insights in different buying phases.

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