Customers view requests for information not as attempts to jockey products but rather as a means to better define what it takes to achieve their goals. They have no reason to conceal information. You have not mentioned any specific products or services. At the predetermined perfect time, you will—when “yes” answers are foregone conclusions.
Once customers’ goals are firm, they know that disclosing the specifics of their filters also makes good business sense. They do not want to try hitting moving targets either. The more detailed the information, the more it eliminates uncertainty about their goals. These details put them and you in better control over whether they can achieve their goals. You know the requirements your products must satisfy. Customers realize that the more information they provide about their goals, the more requirements that any yet-to-be-specified products must meet.
You are now both in a position to determine whether customers can achieve their goals and whether you can help them in their pursuit. You both decide whether further efforts will be time well spent.
Therefore, start your sales call by focusing on customers’ goals, not specific products, so that customers have no reason to conceal information. When customers know their measurable goals, they feel in full control—and so do you.
Example
Ellen Conley sells various types of high-tech telephone systems. Mike Wells, the customer service manager of a large mail-order house, asks Ellen to make a presentation about some of her company’s telephone systems. He tells her that he wants to reduce customers’ wait times before they speak to a representative.
At the beginning of the sales call, Ellen confirms that Mike’s interest lies in reducing waiting time. Ellen, like most product-focused salespeople, asks Mike what price ranges he is looking at so that she can know what products to present. Ellen also asks Mike when he would need a new system to be functional. Ellen, again like most product-focused salespeople, is working backward. She is allowing price and delivery to become the systems of evaluation (SOEs) that determine the product selection, not Mike’s measurable goals.
Mike is hesitant about telling Ellen exact amounts or dates. He does not like transferring control over which products he can choose from to a salesperson he hardly knows. Tension mounts as Ellen and Mike enter the brinkmanship selling mode. They both jockey for control over when details about prices, budgets, and deadlines surface. Let the dueling begin.
Ellen can motivate Mike to share details by making his goals measurable. For instance, she could ask Mike about the financial impact of reducing wait time. She might end up with an SOE using sales dollar lost per minute of wait time to justify price, not just a budget figure. Her questions will now reference Mike’s deadlines and budgets to his goals rather than to her products. The key point is to understand the customer’s measurable goals before trying to flush the person out with product presentations.
[1]Martin G. Groder, Business Games: How to Recognize the Players and Deal with Them (New York: Boardroom Classics, 1980).
Filters Must Measure Up
You probably can list dozens of circumstances that influence your and your customers’ ability to achieve their goals. So, which ones do you choose to consider and which ones do you toss out? Again, you resort to the powerful business axiom: “You can only manage what you can measure.” When you start reevaluating the circumstances on your list in terms of whether you can measure their effect, it starts shrinking dramatically.
Nine purchasing considerations or filters pass this test of measurability. These so-called filters earn their name because they filter out what goals (if any) customers can achieve. They also filter out what products (if any) can achieve those goals. Filters provide you with information about the unique circumstances of each customer and the constraints under which he or she operates in making purchasing decisions. Without measurable goals and filters, it becomes anyone’s guess whether customers or you can achieve their goals.
It is essential to ensure that customers’ goals are not merely wish lists. Although you can measure customers’ filters, like goals, they usually do not start out seeming measurable. You need to convert them from broad concepts to measurable ones. Chapter 5 discusses in detail the mechanics and techniques behind making goals and filters measurable through active listening and questioning. Once measurable, these nine filters enable you and customers to conduct tests of reasonableness to determine whether their goals are achievable. These tests then determine if sales opportunities are worth further investments of time, energy, and resources. (When they are not worthwhile because sales opportunities will be price or delivery driven, or customers’ goals are not achievable, then nothing ventured is everything gained.)
Note By agreeing to discuss the details of their filters, customers are expressing a desire to find out whether they can achieve their goals. They are acknowledging that the possibility of achieving their goals is worth the additional effort to sweat the details of their filters.
Prerequisites and Influencers
It is easier to understand filters by dividing them into two categories: prerequisites and influencers. Prerequisites are exactly what their name implies. Customers and you must satisfy these filters to achieve their goals through your products. No leeway exists. Consider them purchasing constraints or “hard” filters. You can probably do an excellent job of finding out three of the four prerequisites. Yet, as you will see, the fourth one is the key to the sale.
Influencers, as their name implies, influence the customers’ and your ability to achieve their goals. Customers might or might not consider them when deciding to pursue goals or buy your products. While they are measurable and motivate customers to act on their goals and your products, these five filters are not requirements of the sale. View them as peripheral issues or “soft” filters. You can probably do a great job finding out four of the five influencers. However, the fifth one affects the outcome of sales almost as much as prerequisites do.
Note Filters are to goals as features are to benefits. Always think of them together. Every filter links back to the customer’s goals to measure its effect. In addition, whether you find them out or not, filters work behind the scenes to affect the outcome of every sales opportunity that you encounter.
A Quick Snapshot of the Nine Filters
The order in which filters surface changes on every sales call based on customer responses. When they surface is not important (as long as it occurs before you mention specific products). What is important is that you make them measurable when they do surface—and that you find out as many of the nine as possible.
In the following list, the letter P stands for “prerequisite” and the letter I stands for “influencer.” The nine filters are as follows:
Goal Motivation (I). Why does the customer want to achieve his goals?
Current Situation (I). What is the customer presently doing to attempt to achieve his goals?
Plans (I). What does the customer want to do in the future to achieve his goals?
Alternatives (I). What courses of actions, besides using your products, does the customer have to achieve his goals?
Decision Makers (P). Who are the people involved with making the purchasing decision on achieving these goals?
Complete, Start, Budget, and Decision Dates (P). What is the customer’s time frame to complete, start, budget for, and decide on these goals?
Funding (P). How will the customer pay to achieve these goals?
Keys to Previous Successes/Failures (I). What past projects were successful or unsuccessful in achieving similar goals and why?
Attainment Measurement (P). How will the customer measure whether his or her goals were attained?
Note All the filters end with a reference to goals. Your questions about filters should reference their goals also as you will see in Chapter 5.
Do not think of this list as a set-in-stone sequence. Salespeople often find it easier to start with the influencers to build credibility. Once customers realize you are seeking information to help them better understand their ability to achieve their goals, details of the prerequisites flow freely.
Once you know these filters, you and customers determine:
Whether their goals are attainable.
If your products achieve their goals.
What would need to change—goals, filters, or the product—to make it all work?
Think of filters as a sieve. The customers’ goals go into the top of the sieve. The filters then act as strainers. By the time you and customers come out the bottom of the sieve, only the goals customers can achieve and the products you can offer remain. (See Exhibit 4-1.)
Exhibit 4-1: Filters are like sieves.
Customers Come in Three Flavors
The three types of customers will not surprise you; their classifications are almost self-explanatory. Whether a customer is positive, neutral, or negative influences his or her willingness to share specifics of goals and filters.
Positive Customers
They are your long-term and loyal customers with whom you practice relationship selling. As long as positive customers cannot measure value, they always choose their trusted and existing supplier—you. Therefore, competitors who rely on products with perceived value have an uphill battle to make positive customers switch to them. When they do not compete on measurable value, they face an undesirable prospect. Competitors either buy sales by offering the lowest prices or are fortunate enough to meet crucial delivery dates. Understandably, competitors usually do not want to bother with your positive customers; they figure there must be easier sales opportunities out there (more on this shortly).