Synergistic Surprise in Sales Calls

Yesterday, David Brock posted an article on LinkedIn about what it takes to create value for customers. Although I don’t often comment on others’ posts, I felt compelled to dash off this reply:

Dave, I mostly agree, but I would just go a step further. You say that value creation is helping them achieve their goals and realizing the improvements they anticipated. I think that’s actually value delivery.

Value creation is working with the customer is working collaboratively to go beyond their goals and expectations, thus delivering more value than they knew was possible. 

Although it’s not a “sales” example, I would cite the recent news about how the Ukrainian armed forces are taking delivery of Western weapons and using them creatively in ways to get results neither side knew was possible.

In this post, I want to elaborate on this idea of surprise. I hadn’t thought of it this way before, but I truly believe that the best sales calls are those that end up with a double surprise. Typically, both sides go into the sales call with a reasonably solid idea of what they want and expect. The seller generally has an idea what the buyer needs, and the buyer has probably already done a lot of research into their own problem and what solutions are available in the market. Both sides are qualifying each other, which in cognitive terms means that they are looking for evidence to confirm their views and compel agreement from the other side.

There’s nothing “wrong” with this type of call; delivering the value that customers expect is worthwhile. It would be a productive sales call if each side walked out having met their expectations. But the best sales calls, and the only ones that can truly be said to create value, are those that result in new and unexpected ideas that generate value. Let’s call it synergistic surprise.

It’s fairly common for one side or the other to get surprised during a sales call. The seller might learn about needs the buyer has and use that to deliver a better and more lucrative solution. The buyer may learn about a new feature and improve on the specs they use for their RFP. But in either case, the value was there, just waiting for both sides to discover it. Value is created when an undiscovered need meets an unexplored possibility, creating an unexpected spark of creation, enabling both sides to devise an approach that had not been thought of before. My entire body of work on Lean Communication resulted from a sales call I had with the CEO of a manufacturing company. His initial request was to help his staff communicate more concisely, which sparked the idea of lean in my mind, which led to a completely new approach that increased the overall value of communication inside the company.

The benefits of synergistic surprise are, well, unsurprising. When the customer gets unexpected value, they get better functional outcomes which can produce measurable business improvements far beyond their investment. The seller gets a more satisfied customer, possibly a higher price, and insights that they can then use to improve the value proposition they bring to their other customers.

You can’t guarantee a double surprise in every sales call, but there are things you can do to bolster the odds. Start with an attitude of curiosity, which means realizing that you don’t have all the answers. Go into the call with a helping and learning mentality, rather than a selling mentality. Ask open-ended questions and listen carefully to the answers, especially anything which indicates unexplored needs. Listen for reasons you may be wrong. Ask “why” a lot.

Isaac Asimov said that the most exciting words in science are: “That’s funny…” By the same token I believe the most important words in sales calls may be: “I never thought about it that way.”