Choose to be Delighted
We should begin with the end in mind.
Have you ever experienced Cognitive Dissonance while signing a contract? Your gut gets all tied up in knots and you wish you were somewhere else in that very moment. Do you know the feeling? I do. And if I don’t enjoy the mental discomfort why would I want my software customers to experience it?
The alternative would be to provide Consumer Satisfaction. But why settle for satisfaction? Should my customers simply be satisfied or should they be delighted? Why not shoot for having delighted customers? Ok. How can that be provided to a brand new customer when they have not experienced any of the products or services yet?
We should begin with the end in mind. Have them answer the question “What will make you a delighted consumer?” BTW, listening helps. Selling should not be about convincing someone they have to buy your product or service to become a delighted consumer. It should be about hearing their definition and, if you truly can, show them how your product or service can provide it.
Some of the top reasons businesses invest in something is to;
Save time, save money, make money, improve productivity, quality of life for their employees, peace of mind for the business, and so on. If your offerings can contribute substantive value toward their defined categories, then proving it should be easy. And when it comes to enterprise software, I do not mean prove it with a bunch of demos. Demonstrations are a necessary validation point however I believe that when a prospective buyer goes through a series of software demonstrations they will end up with more confusion, anxiety, and disharmony…dissonance.
Here are a few of my proof favorites;
- Viability
- Industry staying power
- Financial stability/backing
- Profit focus or revenue at all costs
- Good References
- No sales rep on the call
- Talk to a few others in the company besides the name you were given
- Customer Retention Rate
- Better than 90%
- More than five years
- Tougher to measure with start-ups so references are important
- Cultural Fit
- How do they treat each other?
- How do they treat their customers and business partners?
- How are they treating you?
- How do they treat competitors? This one is interesting because psychologists have identified that people will consciously separate the alternatives (prop up one option and reduce the value of the other option) to minimize dissonance. Sales people will typically do that on behalf of the decision makers by dropping FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) about the competition while propping up their own solution’s successes. There is not necessarily anything wrong with that practice but should be observed and considered in the context of the other proof sources.
These types of proof sources are simply doing business the good old fashioned way. Some of my friends out there might be rolling their eyes right now and thinking, “Old fashioned… LOL …you sold your first product riding dinosaurs from cave to cave.”And maybe I did. It’s probably why I like my proof points so much.
#SoftwareOnYourTerms
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