Challenge the Status Quo and Sell insights, Not solutions
Compiled from various internal materials from my company’s (a leading Fortune 500 in software) structured sales methodology
- “Why change?” : challenge the prospect situation and highlight the risk of no action, showing how the customer’s reality is worse than they thought it was. You must establish yourself as a subject matter expert
- “Why now?”: Status quo is unsafe but your company proposes a safe path they can follow, starting soon.
- “Why us?”: leverages on your company’s value wedge: where it solves an important problem for the prospect, with a defensible approach, unique to your company. Use third-party data, testimonial, case study…
Forget PowerPoint
Learn the Art of Improvised Persuasion
From an interview webinar in SoundView with Steve Yastrow (www.yastrow.com)
- What is improvisation?
It is not knowing what you are going to say next, and be totally comfortable with that. (Quote from Mike Napier, )
- Yastrow recommends to create a set of new habit to create persuasive conversations:
#1: Think input about output: learn about your customer first.
#2: Size up the scene: figure out “who” before “what”
#3: Create a series of “Yes” (practicing the Yes, and technique…)
#4: Explore a
nd Heighten: find out what the customer cares about and then take the conversation to the higher level, using the customer’s preferred path.
#5: Focus the conversation on your customer: make the conversation 95% about the customer, not about your offering.
#6: Don’t Rush the Story: ironically, you can slow the process if you rush too much. Don’t tell them everything (only what they need to hear to advance to the next step towards closing) & create callbacks: refer to important issues for your customer at regular intervals.
Tests & Tastes 