Sales Conversation Framework : Part 1 - Why Change?

Last week, we introduced a Sales Conversation Framework, as seen below. We also explained the importance of delivering value in sales engagement through proper, carefully thought out questions.

Today we shall look at the first part of the Sales Conversation Framework - Why Change?

I have the fortune to facilitate multiple sales workshops where sales role plays take center stage to trainee learning. Almost all the time, except for a few rare moments, we observed that sales individuals jumped straight into discovery mode.

It makes perfect sense. The purpose on most meetings, especially the initial engagements, is to understand the customer's problem and to find a fit.

But what I noticed was most questions dived straight into process, product and people related ones. Examples of such questions include :

- What software are you current using? ;

- How many users do you have? ;

- What is your current process? ;

- etc...

These questions aren't wrong, but are what we call information collection ones. Information that help us understand the prospect's current environment. The problem with these questions, when positioned at the start of a conversation, are often being perceived with the word, SELL! They sounded more like us trying to find out information so that we can sell to them, even though the intention isn't. Worse still, some sounded like a checklist of questions in an interrogation room!

Try this same set of questions when you have a senior executive or business owner in the same room. It is very difficult not to be tagged as "just another sales guy".

This is exactly the same reason why we introduce the Sales Conversation Framework, not just in the hopes that it could help you understand more of the prospect's situation, but also for prospects to see you as a business consultant to them.

Let us go deeper into each of the tiers within the "Why Change" category.

HIGH LEVEL

As the name goes, these are high level questions. These are great conversation openers and can be applied to anybody within the prospect's organisation.

It usually starts with the words or phrases like "What", "Why", and "Tell me".

Here are a few examples of such :

- "Tell me more about your situation"

- "What's your plan to tackle XXX (challenge)?"

- "Why do you think this is happening?"

- What's your biggest inhibitor to company growth?"

PRODUCT, PROCESS, PEOPLE

We covered this earlier and a major bulk of it are information collection ones.

It is usually used to deep dive into leads you asked using High Level questions. It is part of "peeling the onion" to understand something better.

However, there are a few other examples which we feel are great too :

- "How is this impacting the rest of the people?"

- "Could you walk through with us your process of . . ."

- "Why do you think your current tools / products are not helping you to accomplish your goals?"

ALTERNATIVE

These are excellent questions to uncover competition and to understand what has been done before to resolve the issue.

Here are a few to start off :

- "What alternatives do you have? Have you tried them?"

- "What have you tried to do to resolve the issue before we were contacted?"

- "Who else is helping to resolve this current issue?"

- "Other than us, who else have you contacted in your search to resolve this problem?"

"introduce the Sales Conversation Framework, not just in the hopes that it could help you understand more of the prospect's situation, but also for prospects to see you as a business consultant to them

- Cherry B

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If we take a step back to look at the questions coming from the 3 tiers in "Why Change", it really is all about the prospect's business. It is all about finding that compelling reason for them to a step forward to make a change. Without a compelling reason, this sales opportunity will never be a solid one.

Next week, we shall look at the other 2 categories in the Sales Conversation Framework - Why Us and Why Now.

Till then, we would love to hear from you should you have any suggestions or opinions.

Cherry-O!

#Consideration