Beyond Fluff

How do you know a measurable answer from an immeasurable one? Measurable answers let you and customers quantify their stated goals; immeasurable answers do not. The way for you to receive measurable answers is to motivate customers to progress through their three-tier response levels.

These levels consist of vague, clearer, and measurable. Customers' responses usually stop at vague because your questions stop there. Hope springs eternal—and like most salespeople, you want to sell something—so you look for any glimmer of hope. Typically, if a salesperson feels a customer's initial vague responses might provide opportunities for sales, he or she stops seeking more details. In essence, salespeople mistakenly encourage customers to stop at vague responses, except on matters of funding, deadlines, and decision-making details.

Salespeople tend to equate the absence of a concrete no response to the presence of a vague yes. They do not want to jeopardize these opportunities by finding out more specifics that might not be favorable to a successful sale. They use the strategy of "If I do not bring it up, maybe they will not bring it up." Typically, they do not find out about an unattainable goal or filter until the umpteenth call, after everyone has wasted time and money.

Remind yourself of the golden rule of soaring sales and booming productivity: Sales opportunities are not created equally. Measurable answers help you choose the opportunities where your unique strengths or strongest features connect to the customers' goals. While vague and clearer answers provide you with some successes, measurable answers provide you with many successes.

Customers will provide measurable answers if the right questions are asked, but they do not usually volunteer them. All you need to do is ask the right questions, gather those measurable goals and filters, weigh their impact on providing value-packed solutions, and reap the rewards.

Note

Let customers know that your questioning follows a predictable pattern. It always focuses on making the cost-benefit analysis of their purchasing considerations (goals and filters) measurable in dollars. No moving targets, unmanaged expectations, or uninformed decisions when everyone uses objective rather than subjective information.

The vague-clearer-measurable questioning follows this three-tier pattern:

1. To first find out a filter or goal, you ask some version of "What does that involve?" as in "What are your plans?"

2. To make the customers' vague responses clearer, you ask some version of "How does that affect you?"

3. Then, to make the customers' clearer responses measurable, you ask some version of "How much does that cost and save?" or "What are those details?"

The two case studies in Chapter 6 explore this questioning process in detail as it pertains to filters.

Equally powerful, you can eliminate competition when you make customers' responses measurable, as the following example illustrates.

Example

Watch how the salesperson's three questions keep helping the customer to think in measurable terms—and eliminate competition at the same time.

• Salesperson: What is your top priority (goal)?

• Vague Customer Response: I want to improve operations. (Obviously, many products and competitors can help customers to improve operations. What do you think she has in mind? No one knows until she accepts or rejects his products)

• Salesperson: What does that involve? (Salesperson seeks more details and encourages the customer to provide them by working off her last response.)

• Clearer Customer Response: I want to improve operations by reducing administrative tasks. (Now, fewer products and competitors can achieve this objective. Yet, what products to offer is still anyone's guess.)

• Salesperson: What dollar savings are you shooting for? (Salesperson seeks financial details and requests the customer to share more details.)

• Measurable Customer Response: We spend $1,800,000 on administrative tasks annually. They want to reduce them by 10 percent. (Now, very few products or competitors can save $180,000 on administrative costs to improve operations. If you choose your market segments carefully, only you can connect a unique strength to a confirmed measurable benefit of a goal.)

Note

In market segments where you have no unique strengths, if your product can achieve customers' goals, so can some of your competitors' products. The significant advantage you gain through this questioning process is that you are making their goals measurable while competitors are not. Customers view you as their business and industry (market segment) expert. You help customers enhance how they buy when you arm them with facts that empower them to make well-thought-out decisions. Your sales approach becomes your competitive advantage in these product-neutral situations. You can win the sale by connecting your features to the customer's measurable benefits better than competitors can.