If there was one thing that we could pinpoint as being most critical in selling, it would be perception. Whether you acknowledge it or not, when you are in sales you are in the business of “perception”. It is never how good your product is, it is the customer’s perception of how good your product is. It is never how high you are priced, it is the customer’s perception of how high you are priced. Great salespeople have a way of recognizing this and focusing on the things that they control that affect customer perception. What do salespeople control and influence?
Here are a few examples:
Preparing for a customer meeting: consider a very competitive selling situation. Vendor A shows up for an initial meeting and spends time asking their standard product-specific questions that are right off of their standard needs analysis. Prior to Vendor B’s meeting with the prospect, they research the prospect thoroughly, uncovering interesting points pertaining to the prospect’s business direction and begin their meeting by demonstrating this understanding with some very salient questions. If you were the customer, what would be your perception of Vendor A and Vendor B? Which company would you like to do business with?
Preparing for a customer meeting: consider a very competitive selling situation. Vendor A shows up for an initial meeting and spends time asking their standard product-specific questions that are right off of their standard needs analysis. Prior to Vendor B’s meeting with the prospect, they research the prospect thoroughly, uncovering interesting points pertaining to the prospect’s business direction and begin their meeting by demonstrating this understanding with some very salient questions. If you were the customer, what would be your perception of Vendor A and Vendor B? Which company would you like to do business with?
Two vendors are about to make a final presentation to a prospect to close the business. Vendor A loads a PowerPoint presentation deck of 62 slides and begins to walk the customer through this slide by slide. Vendor B begins their presentation by summarizing the insight they gained on the customer through extensive discovery prior to the final presentation. They condense their value story to 8 slides. Which company would you like to do business with?
Are you seeing a pattern here? Our level of preparation and our desire to want to focus on the customer’s business are just a few examples of affecting customer perception. There are many more: