Thanks to Dave Brock, I was introduced to an article in MIT Sloan Business School’s magazine, which details an 8-step process to improve workflows, starting with identifying and prioritizing problems, mapping the flow, implementing an improvement, measuring results, and making adjustments as necessary. It’s actually pretty straightforward, and I mentioned to Dave that I thought it was a bit simplistic.
He didn’t disagree with that assessment, but he made the important point that the reality is that too few understand even these basics. That rings true with me, because I often find that salespeople aren’t usually clear in their own minds exactly how they add value to their customers.
There is a lot of talk about creating value for customers. We all know it’s important, but it’s kind of like the recipe for rabbit stew: first, catch one rabbit.
How do we catch the rabbit to make the value stew?
Let’s first define value in B2B sales terms. Essentially, every business is a cash flow engine, which runs on cash to acquire resources and fund activities that customers will pay for—in order to create more cash. Financially, you create value in one way only: by increasing cash flow. To add value, you have to affect their business in such a way so as to either increase cash flow or prevent its reduction.
So, the big picture of value creation is that you must improve your customer’s cash flow engine in some way. There are three general ways to do this: increase revenues, lower costs, or make ore efficient use of assets. That will address “why” they should buy from you.
But we still haven’t caught the rabbit. To do so, we must answer the “How” question. How, specifically, do we cause those cash flow improvements?
The answer lies in process improvements. Carrying the engine analogy one step deeper, every engine is a collection of systems that work together to generate the results it’s designed for. Your customer’s business comprises a bundle of processes and workflows that all fit together. Every process receives inputs and applies work to them, to create an output that a customer values. The customer can be external or internal. External processes that create value for customers include manufacturing, outbound logistics, sale and support, etc. Internal processes are those that keep the lights on, satisfy legal requirements, account for results, and so on.
These processes are the levers that you can manipulate to create business improvements. It’s as simple—and difficult—as that. You create value by improving relevant processes in some way. You may reduce inputs, increase throughput, speed up the process, remove constraints, eliminate steps, improve quality, and any other myriad ways. Functional improvements are the route to financial improvements.
So, you can’t solve problems, produce profits, or even generate useful insights unless you have a deep and complete understanding of the processes you affect. That’s where ideas such as those in the MIT Sloan article are valuable. Whether you use their process, or one of your own, you must first understand in detail how the processes that you touch with your product or service currently work—the inputs required, the activities and work applied to those inputs, the outputs expected. Next, you must be able to clearly identify and articulate one or more of the ways you can improve the process. Basically, there are four ways you can improve any process: solve known problems (these are usually the low-hanging fruit because they are already aware of them); take advantage of opportunities; adapt to changes; or manage risks.
So, by understanding the nuts and bolts of the relevant customer processes, you can connect your solution to specific improvements that will lead to quantifiable cash flow improvements. If Dave Brock is right in saying that too few salespeople understand these basics, becoming an expert on your customers’ workflows presents an untapped opportunity for you to set yourself apart from your competitors and increase the perceived value of your solutions.
There’s an added benefit—and a caveat—to becoming an expert in your customers’ processes. You gain personal respect and trust—as long as you don’t leave the process improvement job to others. While your company may provide help from marketing and sales enablement with education and collateral material, it is absolutely essential that you become the expert. As Matt Dixon and Ted McKenna say in their book, The JOLT Effect, by owning the flow of information, you bolster the customer’s perception of you as the expert. They quote one rep, who said:
“I always want my customers to see me as the source of information and a subject matter expert. If I abdicate that role, they’ll only see me as a glorified admin and then they’ll start relying on their own research rather than looking to me as a guide and trusted advisor.”
Financial value rests on functional value, and when you can understand and credibly discuss both, you will be a rare and valuable resource that your customers will cherish.
Dave Brock and I have inadvertently begun a snowball of mutually referential posts since I dashed off a comment to a post on creating value. In his latest response, he states that: “First, these conversations can’t exist without a strong foundation of trust. If our customers don’t trust us, if we don’t trust them, we can’t open up.”
As much as I trust Dave’s wisdom, I don’t fully agree. Yes, trust is critical in creative sales conversations, but he implies the common misconception that trust takes a long time to establish. The reality is that trust can click almost instantly. In fact, Charles Green, co-author of The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook, says, “Contrary to popular wisdom, people make serious judgments of trust very quickly. Trust is a mix of the rational and emotional and snap emotional judgments are commonplace. People decide almost instantaneously whether they trust you—without much proof.”[1]
I used the word “click” because it accurately describes my experience over four decades of selling and teaching. In sales calls, as well as in training sessions (which are in effect sales calls also), I’ve often experienced those “click” moments, when you can tell you have quickly won someone’s trust—when arms unfold, they lean forward, and their face comes alive. When these moments happen there is a step change in the quality of the conversation, and magic can happen.
There are more principles and practices you can follow to increase the chances of having these moments than I can cover in one post, and I recommend several books at the end of this article. But, for what it’s worth, I would like to share some of those things that have worked for me over the years, all of which I stumbled on by accident, I have to admit!
- Listen to them as if your life depends on it. When I was a banker, I made a sales call on the owner of a sales training company. He offered me a job on the spot. Later, after I had gone to work for him, I asked him how he made such a snap decision. He said, “I was impressed with the way you listened to me.”
- Meet their challenge. I had gotten my foot in the door with a major office equipment manufacturer, but I had to pass the final test of meeting with their famously bilious EVP of Sales. He asked me, “So, you’re a sales consultant?” I replied, “No, I’m not that smart. I’m just a damn good sales trainer.” He said, “Good. I hate consultants”, and we got along great after that.
- Admit your ignorance. Long story which is recounted here, but I once had a prospect ask me why he should do business with me. My answer (which I had not planned), was “I don’t know.” He didn’t know how to respond to that, but I quickly said. “I don’t even know if you should do business with me. May I ask a few questions?” That one conversation turned into a long, mutually profitable relationship.
- Ask a not-so-dumb question. In one meeting, I had a sales in the bag, but I knew it wasn’t exactly the best approach for this client. I asked, “Can I just ask why you want to do this?” The VP of Training said, “What do you mean, we told you we want it; don’t you want the business?” I repeated my question and that sparked a whole line of discussion that resulted in a much larger—and more successful—project.
- Find something or someone in common. We’re predisposed to trust people who are similar to us, are “one of us”. If that something in common is a mutual friend that you both know and trust, it’s a double shortcut.
Of course, if trust can click instantly, it can also vanish just as quickly. But that’s a topic for a future article.
The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook, by Charles Green and Andrea Howe
The Code of Trust, by Robin Dreeke
The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It…Every Time , by Maria Konnikova
[1] Charles H. Green and Andrea P. Howe, The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook, p. 5. By the way, this statement appears to reflect an evolution in Green’s thinking. In his original book, The Trusted Advisor, he says trust rarely develops instantly.
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.
In fact, since it’s collaborative, I would say that in true value creation, both sides end up being happily surprised by the results.
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.”
As a successful salesperson, you already understand the value of effective listening, and may have sharpened your skills through formal training in “active listening” techniques such as mirroring, probing, and paraphrasing.
If you’re skilled at these techniques, you’re likely to rank among the better listeners that your customers regularly encounter. But you can be even better if you understand and practice the less well-known concept of listening styles.[1]
In essence, there are four possible ways of listening to another person speak:
Relational listening is concerned with how the other person feels, and the goal is to understand them emotionally and to make a connection.
Analytic listening focuses on fully understanding the other person’s content–their argument or point of view, without judging it.
Task-oriented listening is about trying to quickly grasp the other person’s point and relate it to one’s own purposes for the conversation.
Critical listening judges the validity of the other person’s content by evaluating their logic and assessing their evidence.
As you read these four descriptions, you may have had a flash of recognition about your own tendencies. People tend to have a preferred or habitual style of thinking, and this colors what they hear and understand, and at the same time may affect how they are perceived by others. But these styles are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and any individual can consciously choose which style to use.
When to vary your style
Which style is most appropriate or effective? It depends.
What are you trying to accomplish in the conversation? Sometimes the other person just wants to vent and be heard, and the relational style works best, while the critical style could easily cause a rift between speaker and listener. Other times, especially with complex ideas, the analytical style might be best. Even the task-oriented and critical styles, which might seem impatient or rude, may apply depending on the situation. In fact, each can even be useful at different points during the same conversation.
And that leads us to how to deploy these styles appropriately in a sales conversation. Depending on where you are in the sales call or sales cycle, if you know which style is most appropriate at the time, you can increase connection, understanding, and even positioning. Let’s take a look at the typical tasks you need to accomplish during a sales conversation:
When you first meet a potential customer, there is usually some brief time to establish common ground. This “non-business” part of the meeting may seem to be irrelevant to the actual purpose of the call, but that attitude ignores eons of behavioral evolution. First impressions count for a lot, and one of the most important things that people size up—rapidly and unconsciously—is similarity and warmth. You can use the relational style to listen for commonalities and establish rapport. Moving too quickly to business may turn off the other person, particularly if their own style is also relational. At the same time, you need to focus on their mood, to ensure that you don’t go on too long when they’re showing signs of impatience.
As you move into the body of the sales call, you don’t turn off the relational listening radar, but you do shift your emphasis towards task-oriented listening, minus the impatience. At this stage, you are asking questions and then listening for information that relates to your call purpose. For example, if you’re looking for needs that you may be able to address, you will be listening for indications that they may have known problems, opportunities, changes and risks. The caveat is that you can’t be so focused on specific targeted needs that you miss hints about unexpected needs.
When you’ve heard needs that you can address, you may feel the urge to listen critically, as you formulate your pitch about how you can solve their problem. But it’s better to hold off and go into the analytical listening mode, to diagnose and better understand their issues before you launch into your prescription.
As the conversation progresses, you can use both relational and task-oriented listening to pick up buying signals, such as indications that they are thinking ahead to implementation, or concerns about how to get agreement from other stakeholders.
Critical listening, with its emphasis on searching for flaws in the customer’s thinking, would seem to be least appropriate for customer conversations. But there are times when you may need to correct their perceptions or statements. Don’t forget that selling can go both ways: the customer may be trying to sell you on a particular point of view as well. If they bring up an invalid objection, you can’t let it slide. They may have incomplete information, or they may be testing you, so you must listen critically to be able to respond appropriately. And of course the negotiation stage is where you may need your critical listening the most, to be able to counter their arguments designed to undermine your negotiating position.
Listening style affects your responses
So far we’ve examined listening styles as they relate to what’s going on in our minds as the customer is talking. But how we listen also makes a visible difference to the customer, because it influences our response to what we hear. For example, if the customer says, “I just think that switching to a new system will be too complicated for our team.” Here are possible responses:
Relational: “It’s a big decision, so it’s normal to feel a bit nervous about it.”
Analytical: “What specific aspects of the implementation concern you the most?”
Task-oriented: “We have a dedicated team that specializes in ensuring a smooth transition.”
Critical: “Your concerns are unfounded. The processes you’ve seen in the past are totally different.”
It’s a skill that takes practice
You might think that listening styles are just a matter of “different strokes for different folks”, but sales conversations are like swimming the individual medley in the Olympics—you can’t win without being able to master each stroke. We all have tendencies or habitual listening styles, but ultimately style is a choice, and a skill you can work on.
Here’s a small experiment you can run: next time you speak to a customer, pay attention to your own thoughts and responses to gain an awareness of your own style. Then, gradually expand your own range by consciously switching between style. Finally, try varying your responses and paying attention to the difference it makes.
[1] See, for example, “What’s Your Listening Style?”, by Rebecca D. Minehart, Benjamin B. Symon, Laura K. Rock, Harvard Business Review, May 31, 2022.
