“Your customers do not want your product. They simply want a solution to a problem that they haven’t yet been able to solve.” – Darren Mitchell in today’s Tip 1035
Do you have the solution to your customer’s problem?
Join the conversation below and learn more about Darren!
Darren Mitchell Website
Darren Mitchell on LinkedIn
The Exceptional Sales Leader Podcast on Apple Podcast
The Exceptional Sales Leader Podcast on Spotify
Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]
Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Darren Mitchell. Darren is the host of The Exceptional Sales Leader Podcast, he’s committed to developing exceptional sales leaders & teams, who drive consistent, sustainable & replicable results. He mentors & coaches Sales Leaders 1:1 and facilitates engaging and interactive workshops to unleash the potential of sales leaders & their teams. Here he is:
Darren Mitchell: In today’s Daily Sales Tip, I’m going to talk about a topic that might sound controversial and it might sound challenging, and that is your customers don’t want your product. Now, despite sales being a phenomenal career. There are many, many salespeople and sales leaders out there who are causing themselves and their companies a huge amount of grief. Why? Because they continue to make it all about themselves and their products. And you hear them. I have the best product. We have the best service. We’ve got the fastest, the biggest, the greatest. Who cares? Your customers certainly doesn’t, because if they did, you wouldn’t actually be required.
Now, I’ve worked with hundreds, if not thousands, of salespeople over the last 20 years, and the vast majority suffer from the same condition, the “All about me” syndrome. This happens at an individual level, and it can certainly also happen at a company level. Just have to look at the executive summaries and the proposals that people put out. They’re all geared around trying to convince a customer. I’m staggered at the number of organizations that simply drink their Kool-Aid and believe that it’s okay to mention their own company’s name by a factor of 10 to 1 compared to their customer’s name in an executive summary. It’s not making it about the customer. It’s making it all about themselves.
I’ve also got an example of a company who has a phenomenal product, and yet they did 81 demonstrations to prequalified and highly qualified prospects and not a single sale came out of it. And when we analyzed why it was because they were trying to flog their product.
Now sales leaders and salespeople who get it understand a few simple principles.
The first one is people buy from those who they know, who they like, and who they trust. So how about we start spending more time investing in creating credibility and building trust with our prospective customers?
The second principle is sales is all about problem-solving. It is not about product pushing. And when we understand this, all of a sudden, sales can become significantly easier and a lot more enjoyable.
Just think about this. If you as a prospective provider of a service can articulate a problem that a prospective customer has, and you can articulate that problem better than the customer can articulate that problem. Guess what they’re going to think. They’re going to think that you must have a solution to that particular problem, and therefore they’re going to be significantly more open to hearing what that solution actually is. So make sure it’s about problem-solving. It is not about product pushing.
And the third key principle is that great salespeople show an interest in the customer and in the customer’s business. They don’t go in there trying to be interesting. Now, this is the key to not only great relationships, it’s certainly key to great sales outcomes. Become more interested in your customer and through that process, guess what? You will become more interesting to your customer and the end result is a sale will be a natural consequence of an authentic conversation. And yes, we may still need to ask for the sale, but it is not going to come across as being pushy.
So remember, your customers do not want your product. They simply want a solution to a problem that they haven’t yet been able to solve. And you may just be the catalyst for helping them to solve that problem. So the key message make it all about them. Solve a problem, and just watch what happens to your sales number, and of course, to your levels of confidence, you will become unstoppable. So that is today’s daily sales tip.
Scott Ingram: For links to connect with Darren on LinkedIn and to his website, podcast, and more, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1035.
Once you’ve done that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!