“Does this customer want to buy?”: A more nuanced approach to sales
This article proposes a new perspective on sales effectiveness, moving beyond BANT and MEDDIC and defying the assumptions behind purchase decisions.
Key Takeaways:
- Traditional frameworks like BANT and MEDDIC provide valuable guidance, but they fall short in their focus on qualifying leads rather than understanding the buying process.
- Effective sales require a multifaceted approach that considers the following:
- Product-market validation (WHO): Define your risk appetite and target customers who would be open to adopting your solution.
- Jobs to be done (WHY): Understand your customers’ challenges and what alternatives they consider before finding your solution.
- Narrative of change (HOW): Craft a compelling story that resonates with your audience and illustrates how your product transforms their world.
- Benefit statement as a hypothesis (VALUE): Define a measurable indicator of success that demonstrates the specific value your solution delivers.
In an era where sales methodologies like BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeframe) and MEDDIC (Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion) have dominated the landscape, not much is said that these frameworks are an aid to evaluate the likelihood that someone would buy your product or service. But if your work as a salesperson or commercial executive is only to validate leads and proceed through the pipeline, you probably hit the nail on its head, and you have more people trying to buy your product than you can handle. Then, it is all about optimizing the sales funnel for more efficiency.
But this promised land is rarely the case. The complexities of the market require so many tries and errors that the execution of sales (as necessary as is) gets trapped on the “Does this customer want to buy?” narrow approach. What I have seen after nearly ten years of working in sales is that we need to mix of:
1 — Product market validation — define your risk appetite (WHO)
Depending on the company you have been working for, you might or might not have encountered a previous sales playbook. You look for your Ideal Customer Profile and all the possible unique value propositions you could offer. Go through marketing campaigns and lead generation, squeeze some sales-qualified leads, and hope for opportunities that will close as soon as possible.
A notable limitation of using an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), such as targeting a ‘Chief Marketing Officer’ in a mid-sized European company, is its failure to reveal the buyer’s risk tolerance.
In other words, where is your buyer in the adoption curve?
I won’t explain the chasm in this article but highlight that all your sales approaches and product propositions should be defined and tailored to identify if your target CMO/company is on the profile of early adopters, conservatives, or skeptics.
If you are working in a startup younger than five years, have less than 20 clients, and are fueled by Venture Capital money, most likely, you are selling to early adopters even if your clients are enterprises. That CMO we mentioned before could be sitting on top of thousands of employees but is still taking some risk to use a product not entirely validated by a larger market.
The main point is to validate an initial product-market fit. Apart from the classic ICP, you must define the risk profile you seek. And be honest about why taking the risk with your product is worth a try. It might be a waste of time trying to convince someone skeptical that your product is the future, even if it is! That person is looking for solid proof of solutions with hundreds of references in the market.
Define your risk profile first, and look for other cases in which your buyer did that. If you are selling from a startup, look for clues that your ICP is an early adopter and has taken other risks earlier.
2 — Jobs to be done — define your competitors (WHY)
Having identified your ideal customer and their risk appetite, let’s explore their ‘why’.
Jobs to be done — This expression comes from Clayton Christensen’s book The Innovator’s Dilemma. If, at the previous stages, we were looking at buyer profiles more than simple demographics, here the focus is to unveil “Why?” someone would buy our product. I am not talking about your vision, what you have read in your sales collateral, or the numbers in your CRM. We are talking about qualitative stories and understanding your buyer’s process, from identifying a challenge to hiring (buying) a solution to improve his status quo.
It is not helpful to condemn our present behavior patterns … it is helpful to see what function these habits are serving, so that if we learn a better way to achieve the same end, we can do so. We never repeat any behavior which isn’t serving some function or purpose. It is difficult to become aware of the function of any pattern of behavior while we are in the process of blaming ourselves for having a “bad habit.” But when we stop trying to suppress or correct the habit,we can see the function it serves, and then an alternative pattern of behavior, which serves the same function better, emerges quite effortlessly.
The Inner Game of Tennis — W. Timothy Gallwey
To understand the ‘why’ behind their purchase decision, ask the customer about their thought process before considering your solution. What were they using previously, and what alternatives did they evaluate?
Don’t fall into the trap of selling “we are cheaper, faster, and easier”; customers need more granularity and examples to which we can relate. Everyone is promising a Return On Investment somehow. Be clear about what you’re helping your clients with, and show how they will achieve. Your main competitors could be not other companies in the same solution-type space but workarounds that won’t require buying anything new.
Think about card payments. The biggest market to tackle is not the VISA vs Mastercard customer base but all the payments made, not by card—cash, open banking, direct debit, cross-border transfers, etc. Take a look at their acquisitions; many are tackling new forms of payments where cards would be a problematic workaround solution.
Define your customers’ options and other choices to address the activities you are trying to help them with.
3 — A narrative of change — defining the story we have in common (HOW)
For any dialogue, negotiation, and even conflict, we need to have something in common that we can agree with, no matter how small it is. If you try to sell something without connection with your audience, it is spam. A well-tailored message is an enlightening piece that you can relate to.
Explain a change better than anyone else. I can’t help but reference a great article from Andy Raskin — https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/greatest-sales-deck-ive-ever-seen-andy-raskin/
Describe a change
# 1. Name a Big, Relevant Change in the World
Instead, name the undeniable shift in the world that creates both (a) big stakes and (b) huge urgency for your prospect.
Note the subtle but important difference from what most pitch advice tells you, which is to start with “the problem.” When you assert that your prospects have a problem, you put them on the defensive. They may be unaware of the problem, or uncomfortable admitting they suffer from it.
But when you highlight a shift in the world, you get prospects to open up about how that shift affects them, how it scares them, and where they see opportunities. Most importantly, you grab their attention.
# 2. Show There’ll Be Winners and Losers
All prospects suffer from what economists call “loss aversion.” That is, they tend to avoid a possible loss by sticking to the status quo, rather than risk a possible gain by opting for change.
To combat loss aversion, you must demonstrate how the change you cited above will create big winners and big losers. In other words, you have to show both of the following:
1. That adapting to the change you cited will likely result in a highly positive future for the prospect; and
2. That not doing so will likely result in an unacceptably negative future for the prospect
# 3. Tease the Promised Land
If you introduce product/service details too soon, prospects won’t yet have enough context for why those details are important, and they’ll tune out.
Instead, first present a “teaser” vision of the happily-ever-after that your product/service will help the prospect achieve — what I call the Promised Land.
Note that the Promised Land is a new future state, not your product or service.
(Over lunch, I asked my friend Tim to articulate his Promised Land, and he said, “You’ll have the most innovative platform for ____.” Nope: the Promised Land is not having your technology, but what life is like thanks to having your technology.)
# 4. Introduce Features as “Magic Gifts” for Overcoming Obstacles to the Promised Land
When you introduce your product or service, do so by positioning its capabilities like the lightsaber, wizardry and spells — as “magic gifts” for helping your main character (prospect) reach that much-desired Promised Land.
For example, above is the slide where Zuora talks about the structure of its customer record. Out of context, this detail would likely bore even the most technical prospect.
Positioned in the context of transitioning from an “old world” to a “new world,” however, it’s the foundation for an engaging conversation with prospects — technical and otherwise — about why it’s so hard to reach the Promised Land with traditional solutions.
# 5. Present Evidence that You Can Make the Story Come True
4 — Benefit statement as a hypothesis (VALUE)
At this stage, we have defined a first version of why someone would buy your solution and who this person or group is with their approach to risk.
Now is the time to delve into how your solution fits into the transformation narrative of the industry. The final message to your potential customers might be a result/metric that will be the closest you could get as a success factor between how your solution is used and how satisfied your users would be. Mark Roberge does a great job naming it the “Customer Success Leading Indicator”.
More details on his article: https://www.stage2.capital/blog/the-science-of-re-establishing-growth-when-where-how
Focus on measurable metrics from successful customer stories, not anecdotal ROI claims. For example: “How many new reports were created from your platform and how many people benefit from them?”
Your Customer Success Leading Indicator is one step closer to great results for your clients. If you are selling complex analytics, the ability to generate insights that before were blindspots requires that your user create and access these great visualization tools.
Some examples from Mark’s article:
[Customer Success Leading Indicator] is “True” if P% of customers achieve E event(s) within T days
Documented examples of leading indicators from modern day unicorns, organized in this format, are below.
1. Slack: 70% of customers send 2,000+ team messages in the first 30 days
2. Dropbox: 85% of customers upload 1 file in 1 folder on 1 device within 1 hour
3. HubSpot: 80% of customers use 5 features out of the 25 features in the platform within 60
Rarely will we find a magic number to define success, so we will run a combination of hypotheses to uncover the best way to calculate this indicator. Your metrics are not static; they will evolve as your product changes and the market needs point to new directions.
It is a continuous process of discovering the right product-market fit.
If everyone in the market promises to make money, save money, or improve efficiency, we are all competing for the same pot of funds.
As we move forward in an ever-evolving landscape, a crucial question lingers: are we truly understanding the “why” behind purchase decisions? The integration of product-market validation, the clarity provided by the Jobs to be Done framework, the power of a shared narrative of change, and the precision of a benefit statement as a hypothesis marks a departure from traditional sales strategies. This pivot challenges us to rethink how we engage with potential customers and invites us to reimagine the sales process as a collaborative journey.
