Solve your sales barriers
... do too many transactions stall during the sales process?
When selling we encounter barriers in our prospect’s organizations, in our own organization, in our business environment and often in people’s perceptions of a situation, which cost us sales.
Here is why this happens, why the barriers are costly to everyone, and where to look out for them. (P.S. ...the surprise is found in #3, below)
To close new sales, in addition to solving a “must have” need for your prospect, you need a good fit (and to the extent possible, strong alignment) between your offering and your prospect’s organization, in at least these three dimensions:
1. Strategic fit
Your offering helps your prospect's main strategy, goals, survival or reason for existence.
2. Operational fit
Your offering helps your prospect be better at something they do, provides benefits to them or solves a problem they face, and is not at odds with how they do (or want to do) things which are important to them. This is where most sales efforts are often focused.
3. Personal fit (too often ignored…)
An automatic first reaction for people when encountering something new, is to see whether there is any personal danger involved – any risk of loss, any change to adapt to, any cost incurred, or any new difficulties on the way.
Introducing the possibility of changes to their work or environment causes previously familiar things to become unpredictable for people, and this induces legitimate fears: …will my expertise and experience become devalued? Will I be stressed by new requirements? Will I be able to adapt? Will my job be at risk?
If your offering is perceived as threatening by anyone, in any role or at any level at your prospect organization (or if it could affect personal agendas negatively), your path to closing a sale will meet additional barriers to success. Worse, the people affected will be motivated to do their best to keep those reasons from you.
Often, negative effects center around:
Using a systematic method to uncover barriers to your sales can improve your sales results significantly.
As you discover more of the hidden barriers which are blocking your sales, you will be in a better position to deal with them - in your proposals to your prospects and in your selling process - so that these barriers do not stall your sales.
When selling we encounter barriers in our prospect’s organizations, in our own organization, in our business environment and often in people’s perceptions of a situation, which cost us sales.
Here is why this happens, why the barriers are costly to everyone, and where to look out for them. (P.S. ...the surprise is found in #3, below)
To close new sales, in addition to solving a “must have” need for your prospect, you need a good fit (and to the extent possible, strong alignment) between your offering and your prospect’s organization, in at least these three dimensions:
1. Strategic fit
Your offering helps your prospect's main strategy, goals, survival or reason for existence.
2. Operational fit
Your offering helps your prospect be better at something they do, provides benefits to them or solves a problem they face, and is not at odds with how they do (or want to do) things which are important to them. This is where most sales efforts are often focused.
3. Personal fit (too often ignored…)
An automatic first reaction for people when encountering something new, is to see whether there is any personal danger involved – any risk of loss, any change to adapt to, any cost incurred, or any new difficulties on the way.
Introducing the possibility of changes to their work or environment causes previously familiar things to become unpredictable for people, and this induces legitimate fears: …will my expertise and experience become devalued? Will I be stressed by new requirements? Will I be able to adapt? Will my job be at risk?
If your offering is perceived as threatening by anyone, in any role or at any level at your prospect organization (or if it could affect personal agendas negatively), your path to closing a sale will meet additional barriers to success. Worse, the people affected will be motivated to do their best to keep those reasons from you.
Often, negative effects center around:
- the fact that change will be required (in personal routines, job requirements or staffing)
- or that some aspect of your offering causes difficulties, because of process, design or usability factors, which the people who actually have to work with your product or service do not like.
Using a systematic method to uncover barriers to your sales can improve your sales results significantly.
As you discover more of the hidden barriers which are blocking your sales, you will be in a better position to deal with them - in your proposals to your prospects and in your selling process - so that these barriers do not stall your sales.