One of the things I constantly discuss with my partners, prospects, and colleagues in sales, is how to identify the goals of our potential clients. Getting meaningful goals is an important part of tieing down the value of any product/service. By explaining how we can help hit those goals with a clearly defined value proposition, we are now advising our prospects and adding true value.
So how can we ensure we are getting meaningful goals from our prospects?
A lot of times we identify different ways to ask the same question; what are your goals? While I highly encourage getting creative with how questions are posed, this has still left a gap in my process, and a lot of my partners as well.
What we have seen is that we've asked the question (what are your goals?), then we've tied those goals into the solution we offer creating the value bridge, but prospects still don't seem motivated or understand the value enough to want to buy.
Why not? Don't they want our help? Have we not done a good enough job selling the value or explaining how our product/service will help hit their goals?
Ok, get ready for this one...ready?
Those goals mean nothing.
Often times in these scenarios, the goals the prospect has given just don't matter. There may be no consequences if they miss, or maybe there is no personal connection to them. It could also be that there are no implications or outcomes if those goals are achieved, so they don't hold meaning. Now I know this isn't the only reason sales pursuits fall off at this stage, but for today we are going to focus here.
It is our duty as sales professionals to dig deep in our exploration with prospects, and that especially means their goals. Throughout my sales conversations I have heard a number of goals, but the reality is that those are meaningless, unless we have dug deeper and asked a few follow up questions and clarified:
- Importance
Does this goal actually matter...simply asking the question, "Is this an important target? Why or why not?" will help you determine if it holds meaning. This helps dig into the next level of qualification. There is big difference between "Our goal is to increase revenues 20% YoY" and "The goal is to increase revenues 20% YoY so we can open a new office location overseas". Not only does it give context, but it also motivations. If they come back at the end of the sale, and say no, now you have the ability to challenge and ask what the plan is to open that new office space. The "why" is much more important than the "what".
- Cost of Inaction
Another method to qualify if goals actually matter is to see what happens if things remain status quo. Find out if they could be simply doing more of what they already do to hit their targets. Will that work? Why or why not? One of my favorite things to ask, is "What happens if you don't hit that goal?" Are there some real, concrete consequences, if they miss that target. A missed goal resulting in 10% of the workforce being laid off, is a lot more powerful than a sad CEO. Dig deep into the outcomes of missing that target to qualify.
- Realistic
It can be tough to qualify goals for realism, but it's important to do. I encourage my partners to ask "How does that target compare to last year/quarter/month's performance?" Let's figure out if they are setting the bar too high, and if they think the goal is attainable. If the bar was set out of reach to begin with, then the underlying motivation to get there, won't be as strong.
Above are a few strategies I use as a framework to analyze the goals my prospects communicate, but I recognize there are a lot more. These are simply three ways I have formed as a framework to analyze goals in an Inbound Selling type of way. What do you do to help qualify your prospects goals?
