270: The Buyer's Gap

<p>Clients don’t need to do anything.  We discover this unfortunate fact very quickly in sales.  We also discover they are never on our timetable of what needs to happen. They can stay with the same supplier or they can make no changes to their current situation.  Neither of those are helpful for a salesperson.  There must be some driver for the buyer to take action and take action right now. There has to be a gap between where they are now and where they want to be.  This gap can be quite clear to the buyer, but even that doesn’t mean they will take any action. </p> <p> </p> <p>If they think they can get to where they need to be to bridge that gap, using their own resources, they will not pay for anyone to help them. Often, when we meet the buyer, they have super strong self belief they can do it all by themselves.  It is the salesperson’s job to really test that self belief.</p> <p> </p> <p>This comes down to our communication skills.  Can we show some different view of the problem? Can we offer some insight that the buyer hasn’t considered as yet?  Can we show that they are a lot further away from where they need to be and that they can’t get there by themselves?  Of course we are going to use logic to get them to move but that may not be enough. Can we get them emotionally involved in a better solution to the problem using us, rather than launching their own DIY campaign internally?</p> <p> </p> <p>This intervention requires a great deal of subtlety and diplomacy, because no buyer likes to be told they are wrong or made to look insufficient in their capability to run their business successfully.  Leaders have a lot of self-belief in their own capacities, so we are treading on dangerous ground here, so we have to be careful with the words we use and how we use them.</p> <p> </p> <p>Energetically pointing out some major gap in their analysis of the situation may make us feel good, but the buyer won’t necessarily appreciate it or want to believe it.  It all depends on how we frame the conversation and how we poi