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Identifying decision stakeholders and their needsThe first step in the process is identifying who potentially will have a say in the purchase of your product. Once you identify the WHO they focus on WHAT they do and care about. Assume your product is used by IT infrastructure managers. These managers work for Directors who own the budget and report to IT leadership (CIO, VP of IT) who will actually approve the purchase. The following example demonstrates how to identify stakeholders and their needs.
As evidenced by this example, the actual user of the product has different priorities and is probably looking for a different value proposition than the person who owns the budget. Most sales people are only competent articulating a single value proposition, most likely the one that resonates best with their champion. How do help your team develop a dialogue that appeals to multiple constituencies? Change your selling message to resonate with each decision stakeholder Ask your sales and marketing people to script out the conversations they would have about your product with an end user, a budget holder, and an approver. Chances are the conversations would sound very similar – and not very relevant. Scripting these conversations is a must do for sales organization. Once the decision stakeholders are identified, a relevant selling message for each must be developed. Let's use the example from above to demonstrate how this is done: We determined that our product is used by an IT manager, is funded out of an IT Director's budget, and gets approved by senior IT leadership. The end user (IT manager) cares about executing their tasks in a timely and effective manner. Our selling message to the end user would focus on how we can make their life easier. Demos would be our proof point. The budget owner (IT Director) is tasked with the HOW and is always looking for ways to improve productivity. Our selling message to the Director would demonstrate how our product would make the team more efficient AND provide better him / her with better visibility. ROI and reporting capabilities would be our proof points. Senior IT leadership is concerned with delivering IT initiatives that support the business goals of the organization. We would focus our selling message on how our product enhances the delivery of IT initiatives. Our proof points would most likely be case studies and C-Level references. Developing your selling message is only part of the solution. You must then teach you sales team how to have conversations with each decision stakeholder. Train the sales team to successfully converse with decision stakeholders It's natural for a person (and sales person) to avoid conversations that make them uncomfortable. Sales people shy away form venturing out of their comfort zone because they don't know how to talk to people at other levels. A C-level person has a finite range of topics that interest them. If a sales person gets access at that level but doesn't understand what's relevant, they will lose credibility and support very quickly. To converse effectively with different levels of decision stakeholders, a sales person must come prepared with two weapons – 1) the right questions and 2) the right answers. Sales people build credibility by asking great questions. Before you can effectively communicate your value proposition to decision stakeholders, you first must understand their unique situation. This is done by asking the right questions. Let's go back to our original example. Our sales person has gotten access to Senior IT leadership. The goal of the meeting is to develop support for our product. We want to show the IT leader how our product will help him support his key initiatives. Before we can effectively communicate our value proposition, we first must uncover what is top of mind for our IT Leader. Our sales rep must ask appropriate questions such as:
Most sales people would use a face time opportunity with a c-level executive to tout the virtues of their product and company – and not tie the discussion to issues top of ind with the C-level person. A competent sales person would ask questions first and then be prepared to tie their value proposition directly to the relevant issues. That is what senior executives expect. Once they lay out their situation for you, they expect you to transition the dialogue to “based upon what you just told me (detail specifics), here's how I think we can help (you). The sales person needs to be prepared with not only the questions, but with the key answer – here's how we can specifically help you. This conversation exercise (what do we ask, we should we be prepared to tell) should be done for every decision stakeholder. Put yourself in each person's position:
A sales person equipped with this information will be much more confident and much more effective selling to multiple decision stakeholders. Read More:
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