In an earlier blog post, I had introduced the “SIMPLE” framework to increase your sales effectiveness. I had elaborated on the 1st step which was about how to “Surprise” your customers to initiate their engagement.
Today, I shall elaborate on the next step – Inspire your customers.
One of the biggest reasons why deals don’t go through is in-action. Sales teams don’t lose a deal to their competition but to status-quo.
The first step in fighting status-quo is to inspire your customers to act upon the new insight that you had used to surprise them.
- Paint a picture for your customer about what their future could be, if they act on the insight that you have uncovered for them. Share it as a story, with as much details as you can imagine. Talk to them about how the change that you are suggesting will affect their organization and themselves as an individual driving that change. Compare their current reality to the vision that you have painted. Go back and forth between their current reality and the future reality.
- Once done with this, paint a picture of what happens if no action is taken. Make it as vivid and detailed as possible. Research shows that pain is much better motivator than pleasure. Show the pain that they would need to go through if they don’t take action now.
As a sales executive, you are in-charge of leading your customer through the journey to a better and more effective future. And one of the critical skills that you need to cultivate is the ability to “inspire”.
As you can see that the ability to “Inspire” depends a lot on your ability to tell a story. Highly effective sale executives have this ability. This is also the reason why you get to see so many CEO’s coming from the sales background. They need to develop themselves as leaders in order to succeed in selling.
This is not just true for large complex sales processes but also in short and sales processes that involves impulsive purchase behaviors. These impulsive behaviors are most likely due to a moment of inspiration.
So, if you want to stop losing your deals to status quo or in-action, learn the ability to “Inspire” your customers to action.
PS: Nancy Duarte’s opinion about the structures of great presentations!
