Designing Your Sales Conversation (Part 3)
With all of this preparation in hand (and it takes about a nanosecond to complete this, once you understand their role and their style), you are now ready to start asking the right questions.
A good place to start is to ask them where they would want to see the business. This helps to scope out the ideal outcome, so you need to be working on a solution for them that gets as close as possible to that mental picture they have in their mind. We call this the “Should Be”.
Next we ask them where they see the business right now, the “As Is”. Having established these two focal points we need to design questions which show that the gap between these two points is both huge and fatal. Why huge and fatal? If the gap between them is insignificant then why bother doing anything, why take on the risk of change? If the gap is big, but there is no opportunity cost or no downside to not taking action, then the client will persevere with the current situation, take no action and not buy your services or product.
We hold this part of the questioning until we uncover what is holding them back from closing the gap between the As Is and the Should Be. They know what they need to do, but why aren’t they doing it? These are called Barrier Questions, to pick out the issues where you might be the solution, because so far they haven’t been able to solve the riddle facing them. As mentioned though, the actuality of a problem and the desire to do something about it, are not the same and we must help to highlight that solving this issue is best done right now, with no delay.
To paint a picture, imagine the client has a problem retaining key staff. They are not all leaving at the same time, but gradually the organization is seeing people they want to keep depart. You might mention you have a great training solution for improving engagement, go through the tool in detail but find the conversation doesn’t translate into the application of a solution.
Instead you might reference another client, who had a similar issue and how the failure to address the engagement of the key staff leaving led to that company losing market share and encountering cash flow problems. This triggered a downward spiral, with all the staff becoming worried about the stability of the company, investigating escape options and eventually leading to them closing up operations. Here we are fleshing out the costs of non-action, to encourage the organisation to take steps to stop the haemorrhaging.
Having used questions to draw out the implications on non-action we now need to ascertain the Payout for them. If we deliver the solution and life gets great, what will it mean for them personally? We need to be addressing the “What’s In It For Me” construct. As mentioned earlier this is very difficult to isolate out for most Japanese people, because they usually reference what is in it for the team, rather than for themselves personally. It doesn’t really matter though if we can’t get them to openly express the personal Dominant Buying Motive, as long as we get them thinking about the issue.
We need to bridge into providing the tailored solution for them, and we do this with a Capability Statement. We are not delivering the solution at this point, because we are just reassuring them that having heard all they have to say, and letting them know we actually can help them. We reference what they have told us and we offer our solution capacity, addressed in terms of their Primary Interest and their Dominant Buying Motive.
From this point, we go into solution provision. This is rarely done in the first meeting in japan. We usually go away and come back for another meeting with a written proposal outlining in detail what happens next and how much it will cost.
The ability to set up the asking of questions, the designing of the questions with the specific audience in mind and the ability to provide confidence you have a viable solution sets up the solution provision platform.