Simple Exercise to Stay Aligned with Your Buyer’s Expectations
Why “they buy” is so much more important than “how you sell”. If you don’t understand why your prospects buy, how do formulate a strategy to sell to them? Start every day by asking yourself, “Why do my customers buy from me?”
Draw four vertical lines on a piece a paper and create a matrix that includes these columns: Why Buy, Business Issue and Stakeholder. Take some time to complete 10 reasons your customers buy from you, their business issues as your understand them and link each line to a stakeholder.
Finally, have marketing, support and your executive team complete the same exercise.
Compare the results.
Alignment with the buyer’s process is critical to a successful sale. It’s simple: If you are at the proposal stage and the buyer is at the vendor evaluation stage, you lose. Be sure to align your sales process with the buyer’s expectations, needs and — most importantly — their process for buying. Don’t be afraid to ask what process they will be using to buy.
Michael Nick is the President and Founder of ROI4Sales, Inc. A company that specializes in designing, building and deploying custom sales tools. Visit ROI4Sales for more information at www.roi4sales.com.
Michael is also the author of three best selling books: ROI Selling, Why Johnny can’t Sell and The Key to the C-Suite. Get your copies today
