Listen to your buyers

It’s a good idea to slow down at the beginning of the BTB sales process in order to speed up at the end. Instead of pitching and persuading, start with the problem the buyer has that they may be fully or only partially aware of and solve it. And you should do this by exploring 2 major topics:

  1. What are the problems you are trying to solve?

  2. Are the problems big enough for the buyer’s to want to solve them?

 

Sales managers train their teams to come in and pitch and that’s the wrong way around. From the salespersons perspective the 1st phase is listening to find out what’s most important to the buyer. And the 2nd phase is all about how you help them get that. It’s not specifically about products or services. How can you pitch when you don’t even know what the problem is? Unfortunately, most sales managers are teaching their team to lead with persuasion and let the customers try to figure out the benefits. I think that's like asking the customer to do your heavy lifting for them.