Transcription
As I always say, building value is actually fairly simple. Where things become complicated is when we need to get the buyer or the champion to navigate an internal buying process. There's a couple of techniques we can use to make sure that we're stress testing that champion before we start. Let's talk about a couple of definitions. What do we mean by the term champion?
Well, a champion is someone who can influence your deal internally and is the stakeholder that you're selling the proposition to. It's very rare that the champion is the person who can actually purchase the product, but they have some line of influence. When we say stress testing, what we mean by this term is that we're testing the relationship and we're testing the credibility of that champion. We're going to talk through a couple of questioning frameworks going to allow us to really strengthen that relationship or, at the very least, stress test whether there's someone who can purchase this product within their organization or influence that deal to start with.
Let's talk about some qualification questions we can use to see whether they're motivated to actually do the internal rigor to get this into the business. So we can start with questions like, "If this was your decision, would you purchase it?" That's really good for qualifying to see if they're keen to buy. Second of all, we can turn around and say, "Well, look, are you prepared to work with me to get this into the business?" Now we can use some really simple softening and finessing techniques to let the customer know, that champion know, that there might be some hard work up ahead. I often preface this with, "Well, look, wanting to buy it and buying it are two very different things. So what I'm really keen to do is work with you to get this into the business. Just to be clear, there's probably a lot of hard work you and I are going to have to go through to actually engage and motivate the right people. Are you prepared to work with me to get this into the business?"
Now we can also position ourselves selling this up for chain, and we can lean on our expertise and our experience. So we can turn around and say, "Well, look, in my experience, typically if you're going into your business and selling it yourself, we find that not many customers actually get this over the line. The most effective way of us getting this in front of the right people is if you introduce me to them and I can explain how we can help. Are you prepared to work with me to get me in front of the right people?" Now again, what we're really doing here is qualifying whether they can put you in front of the economic buyer or can put you in someone who's got more decision power or can influence the deal even further.
We also want to qualify the credibility, the history, and the integrity of the champion that we're selling to. And there's a couple of really simple questions that will give us a little insight into their past. So we can ask questions like, "Have you ever purchased a product like this before? How many times have you asked for budget, and how often do you get given that budget? Does your boss trust your opinion when it comes to purchases like this? Will you be able to articulate how this is going to help them and their role? Can you articulate how this is going to help the overall organization achieve their goals?" Now, by qualifying this, we start understanding whether this champion has real sway within the organization or whether there's someone who's just wasting your time. Remember, a large part of the role of a salesperson is to separate the serious from the curious.
Now these questions might come across as being quite pointed, but it's important because we're able to save a load of time if we can qualify our champion who's never going to sell our product internally. Now we want to stress test the reliability of this champion. Now this happens to all salespeople all over the world. You've got a good champion, or you think you do, then all of a sudden they start ghosting you, stop turning up to your meetings, or stop responding to your calls and emails, or sometimes they just don't execute on the tasks that you guys have agreed to execute on. So we need to flip the accountability onto that champion. There's a couple of really simple questions we can ask to make sure that they're becoming accountable. So if ever they've got a timeline, ask them, "Can you meet this timeline? Is there anything you envision getting in the way between now and then? So if we do meet on Thursday at two o'clock, nothing could have got in the way. Is there anything that would stop your boss having this meeting?" Now straight away we can start giving them an out, so they can turn around and go, "Well, actually no, maybe I can't, or this might get in the way," so we can extend the timeline if need to be.
Now another good thing to do is set yourself tasks to go and execute on as well, because what you're doing is you're creating some social debt with your champion, so they feel they need to go and do the same with their tasks. So you might turn around and say, "Great, well if you go and execute on that, what I'm going to go and do is I'm going to go and speak to Wizard and xyz and xyz. I make sure I'll do that before Thursday at two o'clock as well. So when we both meet, we've completed those tasks. How does that sound?" Then all of a sudden they're confident that you're going to go away and do things, created a little bit of social debt, agreed to stick to those timelines, and hopefully should execute on it. Remember separating the serious from the curious, stress testing the champion, qualifying on timelines and credibility of that champion. Remember to subscribe, like, comment, and share with friends if there's value, and as always, happy selling.