Coach Your Team to Speak the Language of Business

CEO Mark Savinson explores how to develop your teams' business acumen in a four-part series. Here is the first - enjoy! New part coming every week.

We can all agree that today's buyers are looking for people to help them address their business challenges, not explain in detail the features and associated benefits of a specific product/solution.

Our challenge is transitioning our sales teams from solely relying on their in-depth knowledge of our offerings, which we can refer to as "solution acumen," to a point where they are equally comfortable and adept at discussing and understanding their customers' businesses – a skill we can call "business acumen”.

We've previously explained the key components of business acumen, here's a recap:

• Understanding how businesses run and the key internal drivers that business leaders focus on
• Building situational knowledge that moves from a generic conversation about business to a specific conversation about their business, including the external drivers that impact their business
• Having the financial acumen to build a quantifiable business case that supports the identified reason to change and required solution criteria.

This is all great in theory but how can you embed this business acumen so that your sales executives are comfortable speaking the language of your customer's business, whether they are speaking at operational, management or strategic levels?

You should think 'TEACH'

• Tell them the core knowledge they need to have
• Use Examples so they can translate theory into their world
• Action - practice in a safe environment?and be observed in the real world
• Consolidate the learning through sharing and coaching
• Monitor until it becomes a Habit

If TEACH is the journey you use to embed business acumen, what's the learning content you need?

• Understand how your customers buy and what drives them to buy
• Know how to build situational knowledge that identifies reasons to change
• Turn your discovery process into a buyer’s perspective, where the buyer discovers why their business needs to do something different and what different looks
• Know how to build a simple business case that drives the reason for change and turns all conversation into value gained, not price paid
• Update your sale process so that you do not propose your offering before you have a consensus that they need to change and the key solution criteria of that change

What examples should you be building?

• Insights that reinforce the business reason to change
• Customer stories of the business impact of change

Run team sessions to practice in a safe environment

• Role plays help, but ensure you do not turn the conversation into “how can we win the deal”. The focus should be on “How are we creating value by having a business conversation?”

Coach to ensure they are selling with a buyer’s perspective

• Reinforce the following: Focus on helping the customer discover their business reasons for change and solution criteria before any product discussion. Do not talk about your company until the customer asks "Why you?”
• Observe/listen to discovery conversations (either in real-time or via a recording) and ask the sales executive, "What was the goal of your conversation? What was the reality of what happened? What options could you have used to achieve that goal? What is the way forward to ensure you are more effective next time?"
• Sales managers should be role models for not reverting to a solution-acumen conversation when the customer is still trying to build consensus on reasons to change and associated solution criteria.
• Always ensure there is a quantifiable business reason for change, without this we are just having a nice-to-have conversation, not a must-have conversation.

Look to move everyone from good to great so that you are habitually doing this.

Now you can use your highest performers to act as role models and ambassadors for the value of Business Acumen in Selling with a Buyer’s Perspective.

In summary, teach your sales executives the value of business acumen in selling with a buyer's perspective. Coach them to lead with business-driven conversations in the first half of the buying process. Only discuss your offerings when the customer asks "Why you?", after establishing their needs.

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