In a Sales 2.0 world, without a problem, there can be no solution - and no sale. But the problem has to be significant enough to be worth solving - and to justify the money, time and effort that will be required.
The costs and risks of doing nothing have to exceed the costs and risks of doing something - and somebody in authority has to commit the resources that are going to be necessary. Unfortunately, many apparently attractive opportunities fail this simple test.
Is the Problem Really Worth Fixing?
Of course, your sales people have to learn how to reliably distinguish between problems that are merely interesting or mildly irritating to your prospects, and those which are urgent enough for them to commit time, money and resources to fixing them. The best sales people always seem to have this gift for early qualification.
What Really Matters to Your Prospects?
But the process starts long before any sales activity kicks in - you've got to focus your marketing on the issues that really matter to your prospects. These issues might reflect general trends in your prospect's marketplace - perhaps including legislation, disruptive technologies, new competition or M&A activity.
Other issues might be specific to your prospect's situation - including changes in senior personnel, restructuring, new product or service launches, the need to exploit new partnerships or the attempt to enter new markets. Whatever the source of the issue, the same question remains - what bad things could happen if your prospect failed to deal with it?
Identifying the issues...
Fortunately, there are plenty of clues that can highlight the issues that are likely to really matter to your clients. We can learn a great deal from voice of the customer interviews and surveys, from best practice workshops with your customer facing staff, and from structured win-loss analyses.
Once we've helped you to map out the BuyerSphere that surrounds your prospects, we can look for the issues that the people and organisations who most strongly influence your prospects are writing and talking about - and we can help you identify the trigger events that signal that "something has happened" that may change your prospect's perspective.
How we Help...
We work with our clients to help them identify the urgent issues that really matter to their most valuable prospects, and to establish their reputation as experts in the field and as thought leaders with a unique and valuable opinion on the issues, their impact, and how they can best be addressed.
We could help you apply Sales and Marketing 2.0 principles to achieve the same. To find out more, please call us on
+44 118 975 0595, email us at
info@inflexion-point.com, or
contact us here.