Know Your Clients And Your Buyers

Have you ever been in a sales conversation where you've made an offer which wasn't well received by the prospect? Maybe they didn't show immediate enthusiasm, or they weren't compelled to buy, or they asked you for something else entirely. These types of sales interactions can feel gross. For both you and the prospect. There's lots of conventional sales advice out there that will tell you to ignore this feeling. Some will tell you to 'be more confident!'. Others will say 'it's a numbers game'. I'd invite you to tap into this feeling as it can reveal a lot about your sales process. 

I was recently participating in a workshop with a group of ambitious, mission driven entrepreneurs. We were mapping out scalable service offerings and a few of the women shared that while they knew their prospects needed what they offered they had trouble selling the offering or misgivings about asking a client to pay to solve a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. After some digging we realized they were trying to sell to a group of prospects that felt their problems were systemic and therefore they couldn't do anything about it. In other words they were trying to sell to people that were problem- unaware. Not only did this cause unnecessary friction in their sales process but it almost had them change their entire service offering.

Trying to sell to problem-unaware prospects is akin to swimming upstream. It can be done, but requires way more effort and can result in unnecessary heartache.

If you are an entrepreneur involved in both client delivery and sales it's imperative for you to understand your clients as both clients AND buyers. Understanding your client looks like knowing their problems and promised land. Understanding your buyer means identifying which stage of the Buyer's Journey your prospect is at and meeting them with the appropriate information to help them make a decision. The Buyer's Journey refers to the decision making process your prospect makes and has 3 stages - Awareness, Consideration, Decision. A typical journey will look like this:

Problem/Pain Unaware → Problem/Pain Aware → Solution Unaware → Solution Aware → Brand Unaware → Brand Aware → Offer/Product Unaware → Offer/Product Aware → Purchase!

Attempting to sell to prospects who are not yet fully aware can result in low conversion rates, frustrating sales calls and can potentially damage the relationship you have with your prospect as they may feel misunderstood. Referring unaware prospects to your marketing and using a multiple conversation close will educate and move your prospects through the buyer's journey resulting in better qualified conversations and more fulfilling sales interactions. It can also serve to reinforce that if a sales conversation hasn't gone the way you wanted - don't fret. It doesn't mean you suck, or what you're selling sucks. It might just indicate you're selling to prospects who are not yet ready to be sold to!