Exploring Impact and Growing the Sale

I was recently in a meeting with a company President, Vice President of Sales, and a Sales Operations manager. When we began the conversation, I wanted to learn more about the sales challenges they were trying to overcome. I quickly learned that each person recognized the same challenge for their organization, but believed that there were very different reasons for the problem!

I was fortunate that all key decision makers were all available for this discussion, but what if they weren’t all there? What if I was going to provide a recommendation based on only one or two individuals’ input?

I would have been missing critical feedback on what this company needed to solve their problems. Chances are that my companies solution would not meet their collective vision as a company and might impact my ability to continue the dialogue with the client. What measures can we take to avoid this critical misstep?

As sellers, we need to explore how a critical business issue flows through an organization. One person’s critical business issue can become the reason for someone else’s problem. This “pain” could be a problem, critical business issue, potential missed opportunity, or goal that anyone in the organization is trying to overcome. Taking a few minutes to explore impact with your clients can help them address multiple problems and help you grow the size of your opportunity.

Also, helping your clients realize that these pains can flow throughout their entire company will help you create a compelling business case around your capabilities. Just think, if your recommendation will help your client solve three problems and your competition only solves one, who will win the business? 

This Solution Selling® Blog article is also featured on EyeOnSales.com, Here.

For more material on Solution Selling® for SMB see Nick Maslanka’s other articles.