7 Steps To Knowing Your Customer

2019: We uncovered an opportunity with a large name brand company in the SF Bay area that would have significant impact on the company in 3 primary ways: first and foremost, there was massive revenue on the line; second and more significantly to the company, this deal would have reduced our downstream supplier costs; lastly, this deal carried an emotional weight as we knew that a signed contract would make the actual users of this service safer while doing their job. For myself, the deal would be a career pinnacle. We knew it would be a lengthy sales cycle.

2020: Pandemic. The company we were working with went through several unplanned reorganizations, including several of our key stakeholders. The project/deal had received its first major setback. 

We scrambled, finding every relationship we had built within this Org while getting advice from our stakeholders who had recently left. “Who is taking over and is this even a priority anymore given the current environment” were questions we had. To the people who we could grasp onto: “Is this still a good time to continue or should we postpone our engagement? Please tell us how you would like to proceed, we will be here when ready.” 

After the first reorg, we had new stakeholders from other divisions coming in to take over. Bringing new stakeholders into a project in-flight is always a delicate affair; when new stakeholders are replacing old, it requires the concerted precision and care typically reserved for dusting a Faberge egg.  We needed to insert ourselves before any other projects or vendors took priority. Thankfully, we had met this new group before - months prior in fact. We knew their goals, priorities, and potential involvement in this project before we reconnected. As we moved through the discussion, they had questions. More often than not, these questions were not directed at us, but rather towards one another. When Stakeholder A didn’t know the answer to Stakeholder B’s question, we were answering them unsolicited. The conversation ended with,

“Wow, you seem to know our company better than us! We will pick up the project where it was left off.”

If the reorg was the great conflagration initially feared, we had just become fireproof. Was it luck? To answer that, we had to look back over the course of the last 12 months to understand how and why we got here. 

There is always a “we” in these deals as it only happens through the synergy of a large team. I’ll share my perspective and what I did to contribute to getting to that point. We can only control ourselves in this business.

As I’ve refined my practice over the last few years, I’ve now landed on the ultimate dumbed down sales process, one which I never imagined before. The biggest lesson customers have taught me in my most recent role is that, more than anything, they appreciate speaking to someone outside of their organization who understands their business profoundly. They want to have easy conversations and know, within a few minutes of the conversation, that this will be a great use of time. They taught me to attempt to know my customer better than they know their own organization. Sounds difficult. That’s because it is. It is the most time consuming, patient process one can ever endure in sales. It is why named account reps only have a handful of accounts. This should be the expectation of sales managers when hiring for this role. This should be the expectation of the customer when they search for a vendor partner. We may not be able to uncover every single proprietary company secret, but we can strive to understand every priority and every hurdle in order to align with our prospective buyers.

When you can know the organization to whom you are selling better than they know their own company, there is no more selling. It’s a consultation and you have become part of the team, not an outsider.

By focusing on the following 7 steps, we get quotes like these from our customers:

“I rely on our partnership as a critical part of our business. I speak to you in full transparency like you are a part of my team working for this company.” - Principle Eng. at F10

1. Know The Company

This is a given. If a rep is not coming to a conversation without having, at the very least, high-level knowledge of the industry and markets their company serves, you lose all credibility on the first call - not a fun hole to dig out of. Some areas to research:

a. Investor relations page: A publicly traded company will have a web page which shows the company’s 10k and recent earnings call recordings. They also may have special public relations announcements where they are showing off to their investors. Think of yourself as an investor in this company and conduct due diligence before the call. Would you buy their stock? Whatever your answer may be, the necessary volume of research is going to give you direction in your conversations. If you are unsure about investing in a company, you will poke and prod as to why they aren’t better challenging the market. If you are an investor, you will try to exploit the awesome work that the prospects are doing and understand how they will continue that work to create barriers that protect market share. This all aims to uncover priorities and valuable insight. Also, check out their financial statements. You may find a sore spot in their costs section which may be an opportunity for you to find efficiencies with your solution. Take notes in a living document and update said doc regularly so you are always on point.

b. If the company is not public:

1. LinkedIn
2. Corporate Twitter
3. Blogs
4. Case studies / customer testimonials
5. Google search news stories
6. Crunchbase to understand their stage
7. Knowing their board members and investors may give insight in the direction/strategies they like to take with their other company investments. Where these members also sit may provide insight into your own competition.

c. Know your prospects to find any business or personal connections and common interests:

1. Research their personal LinkedIn and Twitter pages
2. Search their name for any interests where you may have a connection
3. Look for any public social media accounts where you may find a connection to the prospect
4. Search your internal CRM for past meetings and interview the previous rep, if available

d. Research C-Level PR: The entire company is going to be working towards the C-Level focus. This should definitely be a focus where you can take each conversation from a high-level and trickle down into other teams. Find videos, articles, announcements, etc… 

2. Know Their Customers

The second most important step is to know the customers of your customer. Any successful organization is constantly focusing on the best experience for their customers - from acquiring new users to seamless buying experiences to ease of use of their applications. The customer experience is oftentimes the focus of all BUs within an organization. 

So what do those customers look like? 

Are they social media users where growth at all costs is the focus? Reducing friction on the registration experience should be a topic. At the same time, user retention will be a focus, so Security use cases will be plentiful. 

Are you selling to a customer focusing on B2B? Understand the customers of their customers. Your customers will be building solutions that serve the customers of their customers. You’ll have to really dig deep here with the BU you are speaking to and the solutions where they are focused to point your conversations in a productive manner.

It makes a lot of sense to focus on the customers of your customers. Simply put, a business is made with customers and all units should focus there. Even an HR or recruiting team should be focused on having employees that are the right fit and happy (aka productive). In turn, this should feed into a happy customer. Happy customers stick around for a while. 

3.  Know Their Products

Research the products, use cases and case studies. Of course, you will need to know this to find out if your solution is even relevant. This area should be a no-brainer.

4.  Know Their Competition

Competition is an interesting conversation to have with a prospect. You should be able to detail their competition at a high-level and the prospect should be able to fill in the challenges they have, or don’t have, with incumbents. Come to the table with stories of your other customers and how you filled a gap for them to have an edge on their competition.

I’ve had conversations with customers selling a commodity and the user experience is of the utmost importance to them. If there are low switching costs and a potential user leaves at registration or checkout, they can easily go find the competition in a matter of seconds. Share these stories and how you have helped your customers gain market share. Features are forgotten - stories stick.

5.  Know Their Priorities

When meeting someone for the first time, learning their priorities is as simple as asking the question: What are your main focuses today? Ask this question anywhere and everywhere you can. For named account reps, never turn down a meeting with a target account employee, regardless of tenure or past experience. Corporate strategy starts at the top, but the implementation of anything is done across levels. An intern may be privy to a company priority that your company may support as much as an executive. Triangulate what you hear in other meetings to validate. This will lead to well-pointed conversations and appreciative prospects.

One of the champions we built at a large ride-share Org was an entry level data science engineer. He went to my university. I wrote him an email that said, “Go Bears,” and took him to lunch. I’m not sure what propelled me to do so at the time but my company was all for it and we sell data products, maybe he had heard something in an internal meeting that may connect us. It didn’t turn out to be the case but it’s amazing what a little lunch and good conversation can do. He reached out when he heard about some upcoming regulatory challenges another team would be facing and asked if we had a solution. We did, and he introduced us to the appropriate team.

Finding these priorities are going to make for good, worthwhile conversations. This will also set you up to align new team members on your path from strutting your stuff to knowing all facets of your customer.

6.  Know Their Internal Processes / Challenges

Understanding your customer’s internal processes allows you to head off things before they occur. Your customer will appreciate this because you are helping them through the process in a strategic manner that may make their job easier later in a sales cycle. Talk pricing early to find budgets. Ask about their paper process. Who gets involved in the decision and who signs? Get all parties included early. Ask how they have onboarded other vendors. Did they have any technical challenges? Ask early what’s involved in their security questionnaire. Are you a qualified vendor with some of their compliance requirements?  

Procurement and sourcing folks will appreciate this preparation which may lead to a healthy negotiation. Your management will like this to understand potential red flags in advance, which equates to healthy pipeline management and forecasting.

7. Know The Global Political and Regulatory Landscape

The political and regulatory landscape is something you and your customer cannot control, but it may have a big effect on issues your customer is addressing, providing you with an opportunity to help. Come to a conversation having researched these topics and ask the customer if this is a challenge or focus. They may say it doesn’t really affect them or they have already solved for this. Either way, showing your awareness is important.

As an example, lately there has been a lot of talk about privacy on a global scale. Much of the data collected on users is a large part of the business model for many Orgs. Understand how the perception of the public eye and sensitivity to brand equity affects priorities with your customer. Where is the balance between data collection as a revenue center and protecting the brand from degradation? These questions strengthen you as a valued third-party team member and your company may be able to assist.

Feel free to comment on these 7 steps and add more key knowledge where I may have had a miss. I’m always very interested to hear from the experience of others in hopes to make each other better.

In the end, maybe your solution isn’t the right fit due to timing, prioritization or quite simply, functionality. That’s Ok! When you know your customer to the fullest detail imaginable, you have taken selling out of the equation and your personal competition can only rely on a head-to-head product sell as the knowledge you possess has given you the edge on a full solution sell as a trusted advisor. You have beaten your competition whether or not your solution is a fit.

When we understand the company fundamentally - from the macro corporate vision to the minutiae of each business unit - the customer will appreciate that we are striving towards an natural and pointed conversation, which infers an harmonious sales cycle moving forward. We are sharing up front that we are thought-leaders, and customers will have confidence we are not wasting their time. You must earn that respect and then you will be able to schedule any meeting you need within that company. For Named Account Reps that have very few accounts, never turn down meetings with anyone entry level to C-level. You never know when you will find some info gold. 

Focus first on detailing your knowledge of the day-to-day life of your prospect. Ask questions to uncover gaps or discover new insights on the prospect and company. Having an initial spray and pray method of presenting a detailed solution with all the bells and whistles is not the right approach, and you’ll fall into the category of just another sales rep. The goal is to stand-out in a positive way, not fall into a bucket of every other rep. 

Besides being like the majority of sales people, one of the worst events to happen when you are engaged in a lengthy, year long sales cycle is a reorg on your key contacts. Some risks can be controlled in a sales cycle, and this is not one of them. But we can control ourselves and the knowledge we obtain. After the first reorg on the story at the beginning of this article, it happened again. We were prepared. How many of our direct competitors are taking the time to be this prepared? When we make this impression, your rolodex will go platinum, which will create indispensability and ease of transition wherever your career takes you. Know your customer better than they know themselves and there is no more selling.