By Larry J. Newman, Shipley Associates

Customers act in their own interests, not yours. You must first view the world from the customer's perspective before presenting your solution as the bridge that enables them to achieve their goals. This not only applies to prospects but also applies to existing customers when you are trying to "up-sell" or cross-sell new products and services to them.

Every sales professional professes to be customer focused, but the majority are really seller focused. Although you might see the similarities between different customers' needs, customers tend to view themselves as unique. Customers often say this about the winning sales team: "They seemed to have the best understanding of our business and our needs."

When learning to view the world from your customer's perspective, consider doing the following:

1. Use standard definitions of common terms.
2. Identify potential issues, motivators, and hot buttons before calling customers.
3. Listen carefully to clarify and verify customer issues, motivators, and hot buttons.
4. Evaluate and summarize sales calls immediately after the calls, when possible.
5. Organize subsequent communications around customer hot buttons.

Use standard definitions for common terms

Four of the most universally used and misunderstood terms relating to strategy are issues, motivators, hot buttons, and gaps. These terms are defined below.

• Issues are the customer's concerns. Issues can be stated positively or negatively.
• Motivators are the objectives that the customer is trying to achieve. Motivators tend to be broad in scope. Common motivators are improve profits, increase sales, reduce costs, improve safety, reduce risk, and improve quality.
• Hot buttons are a consolidated set of issues and motivators, preferably from two to five items. When you formulate hot buttons, use the customer's words. Changing their terms to your familiar terms or jargon often leaves the impression that you don't understand them, that you aren't really listening, and that perhaps you don't have their best interests in mind.
• Gaps are the seller's concerns. Gaps are the positive or negative difference between what the customer wants and what the seller has to offer. A negative gap might be that your software does not offer the functions required by the customer. A positive gap might be that your software offers more functions than the customer requires; seeing no value in the extra functions, the customer might worry that the software costs more because of the unneeded functions, that it's complicated to use, and that its added complexity makes it less reliable.

Typically, all but one or two hot buttons are motivators. One or occasionally two hot buttons are issues, but not motivators. Issues that are not motivators usually reflect prior problems. The relationship between issues, motivators, and hot buttons is shown in the following illustration.

All motivators are issues, but not all issues are motivators. Training can be an example of a hot button that is an issue but not a motivator. Few customers are motivated to buy because they get to attend training. However, if a customer was poorly trained on a similar purchase in the past and problems ensued, training might be that customer's hot button.

Identify potential issues, motivators, and hot buttons before calling

Customers appreciate sales professionals who do their homework before calling. Customers resent being forced to educate unprepared sales representatives.

For example, here are a few simple methods for gathering information about prospective customers:

• Read annual reports, which are available online. Most annual reports begin with a two- to four-page letter to shareholders from the chairman or CEO, stating their vision for the organization and their primary objectives or motivators for the next fiscal year. Consider how your organization's services might help this prospect address these objectives.
• Search the Web for information about the prospect's organization. Review what others say about the organization, but carefully consider the source.
• Review any documents or your notes from conversations that you or others in your organization had with this prospect. Do you have a draft statement of work, specification, or project description?
• Review the news releases on the prospect's Web site. Often the news releases are more current than the annual report.
• Review articles from regional newspapers, looking for news that might be less carefully filtered than the information in national media.
• Review your organization's account records. Prospects expect you to know what services you have delivered and how those services were received. They expect you to have discussed their needs with the prior sales representative.
• Consider what other similar organizations have purchased from your organization or your competitors. What motivated them to make the purchase?
• Consider your organization's marketing plans and strategic direction. What issues are your services designed to address?

After you gather information, list, group, and prioritize it. List all the potential issues and motivators from the prior sources. Group those with similar characteristics. Then, prioritize them in order of importance to this prospect. Finally, draft the questions you plan to ask; doing this helps free your mind to actively listen when you meet prospects.

Listen carefully to clarify and verify issues, motivators, and hot buttons

Explore the customers' needs by actively listening to what they say. Actively listen in four steps:

1. Listen
2. Probe
3. Observe
4. Respond

Actively listen by limiting your talking. Never interrupt. Take notes. Ask questions to clarify your understanding, not to make a point or inference. Ask neutral questions that encourage customers to elaborate without a positive or negative inference.

Probe to deepen your understanding and uncover potential objections. Probe around the following potential issues:

• Business and professionals needs
• Recent changes or developments in your customer's business situation
• Budgetary restrictions or guidelines
• Objections to you, your product, or your company
• Selection process within the customer's organization or department
• Common clichés and technical jargon
• Reactions to your sales message

Observe customers' body language, which communicates feelings more clearly than their words. A customer's body language communicates three basic messages:

• "I'm with you."
• "I'm not with you."
• "I'm dead against you."

Respond only after you have listened, probed for greater understanding, and actively observed the customer's body language. You have earned the right to discuss your services only after you have summarized what you heard and verified that your understanding is correct.

Evaluate and summarize sales calls immediately

Buying committees often select the winning solution and vendor. Individuals on the buying committees have slightly different issues, motivators, and hot buttons. You need to win selection recommendations from the majority while neutralizing minority objections.

Immediately after the sales call (if possible), list the issues expressed or confirmed by each individual in the prospective organization. Then consolidate the issues into similar groups. Prioritize the issues, giving more weight to issues confirmed by several people and the people with greater decision-making power. Narrow your list to three to five hot buttons.

Organize subsequent communications around hot buttons

Focus on the customer's hot buttons in subsequent communications, both oral and written. Use the prospect's words and jargon. Link each hot button to key aspects of your solution. Never present your solution independent of these hot buttons.

When addressing hot buttons, always make the prospects' ownership of the hot buttons explicit. Begin by stating "In our meetings…" or "In your bid request, you said…"

Avoid these potentially arrogant opening phrases:

• "You need…"
• "In our opinion…"
• "We believe…"
• "The ideal solution must…"

Following these guidelines makes it easier for you to learn to view the world from the customer's perspective. This is crucial when it comes to identifying customer needs — and identifying customer needs is a key step in making a sale move forward.

About the author   Larry J. Newman is Vice President of Shipley Associates, a professional services company focusing on sales and business development consulting, training, and process improvement.