Investing time and resources in prospect and new customers will regard you in the long time.

Research delving into the ways that customers make buying decisions has revealed that buying resistance often is not caused by what you present. It is likely to result from the sequence of your presentation. Your presentation is just part of your sales process and it should be done at the right time.

Our research shows that 76 percent of sales presentations are out of sync with the way buyers’ minds actually work. Every major buying decision—such as a customer agreement to adopt you as a trusted supplier or first resort—is really the sum total of five decisions. Every customer makes all five, and always in the same order.

Here are the things that customers must decide to “buy” before a major sale can be made.

1. SALESPERSON. The prospect decides if they like you, trust you, and want to give you their time.
2. COMPANY. What is your firm’s reputation? What type of customer service are you known for? etc.
3. PRODUCT. Are your products the right solutions for their needs?
4. PRICE. Are your products competitively priced? Do they represent a good value for them?
5. TIME TO BUY. Is now a good time to enter into a closer relationship with you? Do they want to invest more time with you?

Customers will find reasons not to buy when your presentation is out of sync with their natural decision-making process. To increase your chances, you must sequence your presentation to follow that process: First sell yourself, then your company, then your products, etc. When you do, the prospect is more likely to decide “yes” on whether to buy you, and then buy your company, and so on. This is exactly how professional salespeople orchestrate their sales calls.

To Your Success

The best sources of information on this are, of course, your customers themselves. Salespeople too, can be good sources of information.

Generally speaking, it is easy to see that people don’t just go from having never heard of you to spending their time and money with you in a nanosecond. First they have to realize the problem, prioritize the problem, seek alternative solutions, etc.

Once you know they go through stages like this, you ask them, “So, when did you start thinking this was a problem that needed to be solved?” … and, “What other things were you working on/struggling with, and what made this problem more important than that?” And so on.

A good book on the idea, by the way, is Hugh Macfarlane’s “The Leaky Funnel.”

I’ll be writing an article about this in the near future, but I hope that helps.

Michael

This is a GREAT question!

I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of days, and there are so many possible answers and complexities it is well worth discussing in detail. It will be the topic of my next blog post. Stay tuned.

Michael