Most sales opportunities come from someone having an idea. “I think that this company might need my product.” This essentially comes from putting together two small pieces of information:
The company is doing this work
plus
My product helps with this work
Equals
An opportunity.
This aligns with the way that good ideas come about in general. There’s a great video on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU) that discusses this in more detail. Essentially, great ideas come from small improvements, two pieces of information coming together or two people talking and inspiring each other. Seldom are there blinding flashes of light that create new ideas. Even monumental innovations come about from long periods of effort. We do not usually see all the effort that goes into these innovations, just the end result.
With sales therefore, it is important to understand both parts of the equation if you want to be successful.
The company is doing this work. Understanding what your customer does is very important. However, knowing how your customer will use your product in their specific workflows is much more important. What activities will they be doing before they use your product? What will they do as a result? What problems might they have that makes them realise the need for the product? All of these things are critical to understand in order to be successful.
My product helps with this work. If you do not understand what your product, you stand very little chance of selling it. If it is a specific widget, this is fairly straight forward. However, if it is more intangible, like a service or a specific data type, then this can be more difficult. What is the impact on the customer? What can they do now that they could not do before? What will they learn as a result of using your product? Again, all of these things are critical to understand.
I am often surprised by people who do not understand both of these elements. There is quite often a basic lack of understanding within a service company of how their product is used. Without this, they cannot possibly engage with customers in any meaningful way. This means that the customer has to understand how the product can be used which is much more difficult to achieve. It is much simpler to educate your team about your customer’s processes than to educate all of your customers about what you do.
I would encourage all sales teams to spend time working on both of these areas. Understand your own product, how does it work, what are the inputs and outputs, how does it get used etc. However, it is just as important to understand your customers and what they do. Only by knowing and understanding both sides can a sales person be successful.