“As sellers, what we need to do is we need to make sure that we’re addressing directly what our buyer is saying and not pivoting to a different topic because we assume we know why they said it.” – Jack Wilson in today’s Tip 1332
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Happy Friday y’all. Here’s Jack Wilson to help us close out the week:
Jack Wilson: What’s going on Daily Sales Tips Community. Jack Wilson back with another tip. Today I want to share just a quick story about me being a buyer, and from that story, sort of a two-fold tip for you. So you might not know about me, but I’m actually a little bit of a comic book nerd. So a couple of months back in January, I had COVID, I was laid up for a while, so a friend of mine and I decided to write a comic book. Well, we took that hobby and we decided to actually produce it into a real product, which means we had to hire a graphic designer, really an illustrator.
So I posted on LinkedIn to seek one of these illustrators out, and I ended up being in a buyer’s seat to a sales rep, this was really a qualification call, which was hard for me not to jump right in and coach the person. But something that came out of this call was really interesting to me. The person asked me what was my budget, and my answer was, honestly, I don’t have a budget. And I was prepared to talk about what I meant by that. But the rep instead started selling the difference between the previous method I had used to try to get designed, which was Fiverr and subcontractors, versus hiring a legitimate firm that had tools and resources and, you know, the spiel.
So the first tip from this is when your buyer says something to you, you need to make sure that you’re addressing the actual statement that they made. Now, the reason this can happen sometimes is I think we as sellers make assumptions. Assumptions that because they said something, we not only know what it means, but we know the origin of where that came from, the why behind that. And instead of us taking our time to uncover and validate those assumptions, we jump right into the method we would use to overcome it or to satisfy it.
So, for example, in this case, I said I had no budget. This particular sales rep equated that too. I haven’t built enough value because my price is too high or perceived too high. So I need to go back and drive a value stake between the old method and me, which might not necessarily be a terrible tactic under the right circumstances.
Now, what did I mean as a buyer, though, when I said I honestly don’t have any budget? What I wasn’t saying was, I think the price is too high. What I wasn’t saying was, I don’t have any money for that. What I was saying was, honestly, I haven’t even assigned a number to that. I haven’t put funds aside or planned to spend a particular amount. And the reason for that is, as a buyer, I didn’t even know what the market was. I had no idea what type of price was going to come back at me.
So I was actually looking to get educated a little bit on that. Now had that seller dug in a little deeper what do you mean you don’t have a budget? Do you mean to say that you’re shopping for resources without having the funds to pay for it? I would have addressed him much differently and he would have got to the real root of my response.
So as sellers, what we need to do is we need to make sure that we’re addressing directly what our buyer is saying and not pivoting to a different topic because we assume we know why they said it and asking the dumb questions really, something like, well, what do you mean by that? Not always, when someone says a word, does that word mean the same thing to them as it does to us. And the only way to find that out is to validate by asking good questions.
Scott Ingram: For the transcript, links to connect with Jack and more. Just click over to DailySales.Tips/1332. After that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!