Often the most profoundly true things about sales are deceptively simple. Yet they can seem maddeningly elusive. Like this one:
The answer to why they should buy from you can't be about you. It has to be about them.
Sure, we all believe in customer-centricity and starting with the needs of the customer and all that. We just don't act on it.
When a customer won't see us, or when they raise an objection or say that we're not right for their needs, the first reaction of most sellers is to say something else about their own company. If they're not buying us it must be because they just don't know enough about us! We then tax our internal research and marketing teams for more stats and slides and research tables that amount to a collective "Are too!"
The answer to why they should buy from you can't be about you. It has to be about them.
This is a point in the sales process when we need to fight our own impulses to answer the objection or win the argument. If it's the late stage of a transactional sale, it's too late for this to work anyway. They've made up their minds and telling them they're wrong or that they're making a mistake will only piss them off and ruin your next chance. Instead, it's time to ask yourself a couple of important questions:
What is truly unique about this customer's business or marketing situation that we can really help them with? How can we not just win some of the business but actually make their situation better?
Instead of telling yet another fragmented version of your own story, you're telling theirs. You're offering them a meaningful, thoughtful exception to or extension of their own strategy. It's a better response to being told you're not getting the business. And it's a better basis on which to pursue it in the first place.
The answer to why they should buy from you can't be about you. It has to be about them.
