While I was writing my book, The Equation of Sales, (available soon), I wanted to research the biggest problems that sales people faced. So, naturally, when faced with such a question, I googled “biggest sales problems”. Back came a variety of answers.
There have been lots of articles and blogs written about this subject (about 353,000,000 results according to Google) with lots of commentary and analysis associated with each of them. Each article had a slightly different take on the problems and how to solve them. However, there appeared to be no overall consensus on what was the biggest problem.
So, over the summer, I decided to run a little competition on LinkedIn to see if we could determine the single biggest problem. I used the concept of the World Cup of Biscuits run by Richard Osman a few years ago, https://www.comedycentral.co.uk/news/this-world-cup-of-biscuits-is-the-most-british-thing-ever. The idea is that each day, one problem would be pitted against another and people would vote as to which was the bigger issue. This would continue via a series of knockout rounds until we had a “winner”.
Quarter Finals
Match 1
The sales person fails to focus enough on the customer and talks too much about their product.
vs
The sales person does not ask the right questions of the customer and fails to get to the bottom of their real issues.
This resulted in a close win to talking too much. This is a classic problem for new sales people or product developers who are so delighted with their product that they just want to tell people about it. This is a natural thing to do but must be resisted. Your customer doesn’t care about your product, they care that you can solve their problems.
Match 2
The sales person fails to properly qualify and opportunity and so spends too much time on poor opportunities or chasing the wrong customers.
vs
The sales person struggles to get noticed by a prospective customer, who will not answer emails or return phone calls leading to wasted effort and lost opportunities.
This resulted in a fairly easy win for failing to properly qualify. Chasing a customer without knowing if they might buy your product is one of the biggest ways of wasting time. There are some simple questions that everyone can ask at the start of a conversation to determine if a customer has potential and should always be asked.
Match 3
The sales person does not differentiate their product from the competition so the customer does not understand how it uniquely solves their problem;
vs
The sales person does not provide a compelling reason for the customer to change from what they are currently doing to using their product.
An overwhelming win for no reason to change. Most companies have some way of doing everything that they need to do. Before you can sell them a new way of doing something, you need to persuade them that their current process is inefficient or that their business will be much better for adopting a new one. You have to persuade them to change before you can persuade them to buy your product.
Match 4
The sales person does not engage with all of the right people so may spend too much time selling to the “non-buyer” or failing to engage with the multiple decision makers in an organisation.
vs
The sales person does not understand the basic problems that their product solves and is unable to easily identify these problems from the customer’s description of themselves.
Another big win, this time for not talking to the right people. There are likely to be multiple people involved in the decision to buy and you need to try to talk to as many of them as possible. Identifying the decision maker, the person with the authority to buy, is critical and they are the most important person to sell to.
Semi-final 1
When meeting with a customer, the sales person fails to focus enough on the customer and talks too much about their product.
vs
The sales person fails to properly qualify and opportunity and so spends too much time on poor opportunities or chasing the wrong customers.
Another big win for talking too much about their product. As you go through the sales process, you can talk more and more about your product. However, at the start of an engagement, you need to get your customer talking about their problems.
Semi-final 2
The sales person does not provide a compelling reason for the customer to change from what they are currently doing to using their product.
vs
The sales person does not engage with all of the right people so may spend too much time selling to the “non-buyer” or failing to engage with the multiple decision makers in an organisation.
This was a much closer match which went to extra-time! In the end, the winner was no reason to change. As human beings, we generally don’t like change so are usually reluctant to do so until we are either forced to or can see clear benefits in doing so. Your customer needs to see these benefits before you start to promote your product.
The Final
The sales person does not provide a compelling reason for the customer to change from what they are currently doing to using their product.
vs
When meeting with a customer, the sales person fails to focus enough on the customer and talks too much about their product.
Again, a very close match. Over the course of voting, both issues lead at time but in the end, the winner was:
The sales person does not provide a compelling reason for the customer to change from what they are currently doing to using their product.
So, convincing a customer to change is the most difficult thing that a sales person has to do. It is interesting when reading some of the many articles about sales problems that this does not appear too many times. I suspect that this is because people do not consider it too often.
However, studies have shown that about 60% of opportunities are lost to no decision rather than to a competitor. This means that customers choose not to change more often than they decide to change. Humans have a natural tendency to preserve the status quo. As a result, it is difficult to persuade someone to change. Without a clear understanding of the risk of doing nothing or a compelling vision of “what better looks like,” customers will tend to do nothing.
So, to be successful at selling, one of the first things that you must do is to persuade your customer to change. Only once you have done that can you persuade them to buy your product.
This whole topic is covered by a chapter in my book, The Equation of Sales. As a result of this exercise, I made this chapter freely available. You can download it here, if you are interested.
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