The New Conceptual Selling

by Robert B. Miller and Stephen E Heiman

Amazon: buy it

Company site: Miller Heiman

Why Customers Buy

"People buy for their reasons, not yours" (p.22)

So it follows, don't push your pitch down their throat. Instead, focus on the customer's decision-making process

Decision-making processes

Buying is just a special case of decision-making. How do decisions work? They're a 3-step process:

1. Cognition
   • Understand the situation
   • Use this phase to "understand the parameters of your mutual situation"
2. Divergent thinking
   • Also called "brainstorming"
   • Let this run its course -- not everything that comes up in this phase will be used
3. Convergent thinking
   • This is when you select the best solution
   • If you've done a good job in the first two steps, then this part is actually easy

Traditional selling tries to move from step 3 to step 1. Move in the natural direction, from step 1 to step 3, instead.

"Nobody buys a product"

They buy solutions. Who is they? They are the individual making the purchase decision (if there's more than one, then each individual who impacts the sale's success).

The solution in your customer's head is their concept. You must understand this concept.

The concept

Only individuals have concepts, companies don't. So find the concept in each key person making a decision on your sale's head.

What's in a concept?

• Discrepancy: What's the difference between where they are and where they want to be?
• Importance: how strong is the dissatisfaction with the discrepancy?
• Solving a problem: what problem can you solve, now or later, with your product? This is kind of backing in to the other two: you can create a discrepancy and give it import if you can convince of a future problem, and all current problems have both discrepancy and import.

Advantages of the concept

• Get close to your customer
• Provide a clear focus on results that you can call out in your presentation
• Differentiate yourself
• Avoid price competition, because you're selling value
• Get close to, and impress, the final decision-maker
• Weed out people you can't be win-win with

The valid business reason

The valid business reason is the little piece of the concept that makes it worth the customer's time to see you today. It also is the agenda for your meeting. A good valid business concept:

• Is perceived by the client as having a clear impact on his or her concept -- real value!
• Communicates the call's importance to the customer
• Clear and concise enough to leave on voicemail

Once you've communicated your valid business reason, you should also:

• Clarify your selling responsibilities -- what you'll be speaking about, what you'll be addressing, what information you should bring
• Clarify the customer's responsibilities -- any previously-made agreements
• Be clear about who will be present
• Be clear about what materials are needed

There's no harm in restating the valid business reason when you confirm the appointment and at the beginning of the meeting -- it helps keep things clear and gives everyone a chance to bail at the beginning if this isn't for them. Always be sensitive to people who want to bail, because it's better to reschedule than to fight for attention.

And, heck, if you listen to your customer and always present a valid business reason, you gain credibility.

Win-Win

What's a win-win? Where your customer gets what they need at the price they can afford, and you sell it at a price you can accept

You want to aim for the win-win because:

• It's comfortable
• It builds a relationship and future sales
• It generates referrals

If you win and they lose:

• The buyer will ultimately take their revenge
• (But they'll almost never complain first)

If they win and you lose (you buy the business):

• "Loss leaders" are ok, so long as you let the customer know they're getting a great deal and the price will change
• But you must change the price/schedule/whatever later on to make money
  • And if you make that change and the customer doesn't understand why, then they think you've screwed them
  • Then it becomes lose-lose

Challenges to staying win-win

"There's no fit"

• If you can't meet their needs, then walk away -- ultimately that's only lose-lose
• But if you understand their needs, maybe you can offer a better package, even with one component that's worse than your competitor's

"I've got to meet quota"

• Manage up, to set a quota and schedule that works

"My competition is undercutting me"

• You can't win all the time -- let your competition play the lose-win game, it's unsustainable

Customers who won't play win-win

• Let 'em go

The basic issue

A basic issue is "any personal feeling a customer may have that results in his or her believing 'I'm losing.'" Yes, it's personal. It doesn't matter if it's valid, it matters if they perceive it to be.

Basic issues can't be talked around, and, if left to fester, will make a customer feel like they lost, no matter what the deal.

Signals you have a basic issue

Hesitant, argumentative, resistant, questioning customers have basic issues. Intervene early, or the issues get more serious.

The other kind of basic issue -- the commitment signal

It's easy to miss when a customer is saying "let's move this forward." Any question about implementation is generally a signal that it's time to move forward.

Tactics

Be concept-based

What does your customer really need? This is not a great time to talk -- you should ask questions and listen. What questions should you focus on? Get your missing information:

• What customers and stakeholders are involved in the purchase decision? What roles do they play? Who can approve/veto/judge/use/influence the sale?
• What are my different customers' concepts?
• What is the buying process?
  • And who can guide me through it?
• What about the competition?

Don't ignore the little voice in the back of your head -- ask questions to cover your own worries or the gray areas you encounter.

The single sales objective

Every true sales call -- as opposed to a relationship call -- has a single sales objective. A single sales objective is:

• Product- or service-related
• Specific, clear and concise -- if you tell someone your single sales objective, they won't have any questions, they'll be clear
• Measurable
• Has a timeline
• Single -- if you have multiple goals, you have several single sales objectives.

Along the way to a single sales objective, you have many action commitments

The action commitment

The action commitment is your goal for this sales call. A good goal helps the customer demonstrate commitment and you decide what to do and how to measure your success. Action commitments:

• Are specific -- who, what, where, when
• Focus on what the customer will do (and can do)
• Are measurable
• Move the sale forward -- you may be making many calls to close a sale, are you getting closer?
• Are realistic (not mind over matter), and, in particular, are appropriate for the current point in the selling process. Early on, closing may not be possible, so that wouldn't be an action commitment; in the last meeting, it should be.

There are two kinds of action commitment:

• The best action commitment is the best you can get out of the call.
• The minimum acceptable action is the least you will accept from the call (without walking away from the sale at the end). If you're having trouble getting your minimum:
  • Try asking questions to learn why there's resistance
  • Revise downward if you find that you were somehow totally wrong about where you were when you went into your meeting
  • Walk if the customer is truly not committed

If you can't come up with a minimum, call your best your minimum and dream harder about your best.

How do you ask good questions?

Elicit the information that you really need -- find out your gaps as above and target them during your calls. Phrase your questions precisely, and watch the order you present your questions in -- be appropriate!

The 5 question types

Confirmation Questions

These verify information you have and discern discrepancies in your information. Use them to check everything!

Begin a call with one, to make sure you're on the right path.

Key words: still, remain, as usual, now, currently, at the present time.

Also: construct as statement + "am I correct in saying that?"

These are Yes/No questions

New Information Questions

These build on confirmation questions. Use them to clarify, update information, fill in gaps: who, what, where, when, and how (but not why!). Also be exploratory: ask the customer to tell, explain, demonstrate, or show, and let them give you the level of info they find useful

You can soften these by saying "I'd like it if you could..." or "I'd appreciate it if..." etc.

Use when:

• Unexpected answer to confirmation question
• Get the customer to explore freely (maybe in the brainstorming stage?)
• Any time new information rears its ugly head

Attitude Questions

These are the "why" questions

• How does the customer feel about the current situation
• How does the customer win or lose by solving it? How do they win or lose with your product?

Use what, which, why, and how.

Make sure not to invalidate anyone's feelings -- they may be wrong, but you have to deal with them!

Use these questions to find out about your customer and to ask them about their colleagues.

Don't pitch at this stage -- your key feature could be their big turn-off!

Commitment Questions

The first time you see a customer, you make all the commitment and they make none. That's the only time this should happen.

Get mutual, modest, incremental commitment. Always close with a commitment question, and use them throughout. Commitment questions:

• "Are we in agreement that the next step is..." "Will you set a date..."
• Are future-focused
• Sample words: determine, plan, schedule, propose

If they won't commit, how are they losing? What is their basic issue

Basic Issue Questions

You need to find out why the customer sees the situation as a Lose, and what you can do to make that a Win. Use words like:

• Uncertain
• Doubtful
• Hesitant
• Uncomfortable

Pretty much tackle it head-on and call it what it is. Do this as often you need to, any time you get any of the above signals. Even if you sell through a basic issue, you're likely to have a customer that feels they lost in the end.

And don't forge a key strategy: The golden silence

Pause after asking a question -- give them time to think about what you just asked. Pause after getting an answer -- give yourself time to think about what they just said.

Avoid some dangerous techniques:

• "Think about it" -- it doesn't require a concrete commitment
• Mimicry -- rephrase rather than just repeating back
• "Yes, but..." -- don't object, dig deeper
• Rhetorical Questions -- these questions don't get info from the customer, they just give him the chance to be difficult and say the opposite
• "Why" -- can put people on the defensive. Better is to dig deeper, with specificity