Good Sellers Ask What. Great Sellers Ask Why.
Working as a management consultant, I have the good fortune of working across multiple teams at multiple companies simultaneously. Doing so allows me to identify best practices being used by one person/team/organization and apply it to other clients, as well as share insights from vendors & partners across the media ecosystem that help clients address a wide range of challenges - all centered around revenue growth & profit creation.
Often my work allows me to help clients accelerate sales activity & deal flow; and lately I've picked up on a small, but highly important, difference between average-to-good sellers and truly great/lone wolf/challenger sellers - and fortunately for everybody, it's a trait that can be taught and practiced.
As some of you may know, I'm a true believer of the Challenger-based sales approach. The reframe/rethink model, along with a commercial teaching statement, quantification of the problem/solution, and then a strong positioning statement is a model with which I've had great success. And while it's a model that also can be taught, at the end of the day, close rates are never as high as sales leadership would like them to be; this is especially true in digital media, where sales cycles are seasonal, long, and often wildly unpredictable as more dollars run through programmatic channels than via "direct deals".
However, there is a simple trick that I've found great sellers use that will increase closed/won deals, and it's one that should be ingrained in the heads of your sales team from the minute they are hired......don't ask what, ask why.
By now we've all seen the Simon Sinek TED talk on starting with your why; it's an amazingly simple yet powerful concept. And while a business should START with it's why, a seller should always end with their why.
Much like a toddler asking "why" repeatedly, great sellers will press clients to understand the thought process and decision making process behind what happened - to know the root cause both in the face of success and in the face of failure. It's not good enough to know that you made the plan; a great seller will learn WHY they won the business so that they can find what worked in closing the business and repeat it. In the face of losing out on potential business, a great seller should be bold enough to press the client on why they lost so that strategies & tactics can be changed.
As a companion study to The Challenger Seller, the same authors looked at why & how buying decisions are made - and their study provides a look into the complexity of the process. Understanding those complexities and the factors that go into the decision are critical to understanding how future client decisions will be made, and a great seller will look to apply his or her understanding of WHY decisions happened to the next opportunity.
The difference between good sellers and great sellers is more than just Always Be Closing. It's about listening and asking the RIGHT questions.
The difference between good sellers and great sellers is made right at this moment; good sellers can win and lose, but great sellers maximize what works and minimize what doesn't so that their success rate improves & their business can scale.
Let's take a typical media RFP as an example: on the agency side, you have multiple teams involved - the brand marketing team on the client side, the media team at the agency (VP, Director, Sup/Planner), and now likely the programmatic trading desk team (looking similar to the traditional agency org with likely an analyst or data specialist involved). Meanwhile, on the publisher/media side of the equation, you have a seller, a sales manager, and likely a product marketer/planner involved in the packaging & pricing of deals. Plus there is an inventory & data component as well, meaning the publisher programmatic team. All of these folks are likely involved in the deal packaging & execution, so asking why is a bi-directional effort.
This simple scenario leads a host of "why" questions that should be asked during the selling process:
Why did you receive this RFP / why are we being considered? - This may seem scary to ask, but it's critical to know because you may be RFP'd so the agency can show they are considering many options, maybe it's because of real interest or client interest, or maybe it's a favor for a long night of drinking and Beyonce tickets.
Ask your planning team why they chose the options they did, and why the chosen solutions are priced where they are? Have they considered if the price is high enough to beat delivery of other campaigns? Why did they choose certain vendors? Great sellers are experts with their products, so asking internal product/solution why questions is a key piece of communicating that value back to the agency.
Ask the agency why are they choosing to execute the campaign direct/programmatically? Is it a limitation on their side which you can help address?
Why was the business won or lost? This question MUST be pressed in every deal - not just accepted as "the client decided to go in a different direction". Gaining a deeper understanding of the end client's decision making process is absolutely critical in ensuring the next pass at business has a higher success rate.
Every decision made, in life and in business, has a reason behind it. Too often in business we accept these decisions at face value, limiting our understanding of where we can diminish losses and increase wins. Being inquisitive and pressing for transparency in the rationale behind WHY decisions are made is absolutely critical in increasing sales, and teaching sellers the value of asking these questions pays dividends across the entire organization.
Don't just ask what. Ask why.
