How to Have Buyers Want You to Specify Their Solution

In my last article, I promised to share an alternative to premature quoting (PQ) in this edition: having buyers help you prepare your offer.

It follows on from my earlier suggestions on how to win sales without discussing price or, more precisely, only making offers you know will be accepted. The rationale was: Why make a losing offer?

But first, a quick recap…

Most Sellers quote as soon as they’re asked to and even see it as a positive sign of interest. How does that usually go, though?

What sane Buyer accepts a first price?

Instead, Sellers get the (predictable) ‘price objection,’ which precipitates negotiation with them on the back foot from the get-go defending/justifying their price.

More significantly, their once collaborative Buyer/Seller dynamic of discovering Buyer needs and exploring solutions has now transformed into a combative us and them.

Have you ever had a price discussion that didn’t stress your Buyer relationship?

Why go through that?

In my earlier article, I shared some approaches to avoiding the price discussion, essentially by kicking the can down the road until you knew what a winning offer should look like. This article is about how to arrive at your offer.

First, for comparison, let’s just confirm what a typical sales cycle looks like.

A Seller-Centric Sales Model

Buyer meets a Seller who s/he hopes has a particular problem or challenge and commences with a needs discovery. When the Seller is satisfied s/he understands the need, s/he comes up with a product offering, which he then quotes and proceeds to pitch.

Or it might happen the other way around, with the seller pitching first and then coming up with a quote. Either way, it's essentially a process of the Seller convincing the Buyer that s/he has what the Buyer needs.

All is going well; they progress to negotiation, as the Buyer is not confident that the Seller has proposed their best price. Friction ramps up, and things become a bit tense. They pull and push for a while until, hopefully, there is an agreement, and the Buyer buys. Then over time, also hopefully, a relationship develops.

Sound familiar?

Let's now look at an alternative approach centered on helping Buyers to buy.?

A Buyer-Centric Sales Model

This model views selling as a process of guiding Buyers on their journey to make a sound decision rather than a sales cycle.

I visualize it as a six-step sequence. And, of course, I had to have an acronym!

DECIDE.

It has some things in common with regular sales cycles but with several notable differences. Firstly, it is not a cycle so much as a sequence. Steps are continuous rather than discrete. That is, as you move to each subsequent step, you continue doing all prior steps.

Secondly, it commences with growing trust. None of the subsequent steps will work unless trust in Step 2 is established. That is the most notable difference with traditional sales cycles, in which trust is a hopeful outcome rather than a mandatory input.

As I describe this process, imagine that you are the Seller.

D is for Discover Buyers

As with any sales process, you start by discovering potential decision-makers and influencers, whom I refer to collectively as Buyers. You want them all to ‘buy’ you.

When you engage with them, your focus is not on what you might sell them but the value you might be to them. And to discover that you need to be trusted.

E is for Engage to Grow Trust

Your #1 priority in engaging with Buyers is to grow trust, as you need that to gain full disclosure. Beyond simple needs, you need deep insights into what Buyers personally value, e.g., job/income security, advancement, recognition, risk-aversion, more time with family, etc.

When you're trusted, you can explore those Buyer Perceptions of Value (POV). Buyers feel safe opening up and even being vulnerable, admitting what they don't know, their fears of change and personal risk, their aspirations, and so on.

Trust establishes quickly, much more quickly than you imagine, when it is your primary focus and you stick to the Golden Rule of zero Self-Interest.

The Golden Rule

Focus on Buyers, not yourself. Self-interest is the #1 killer of trust, so don’t discuss yourself, your product, or your company. Stick to The Seller Code. Essentially, enter conversations with no personal stake in the outcome. You don't have an agenda other than to be of value to Buyers.

That will likely draw a gasp from many. However, the absence of an agenda means you objectively assess (qualify) opportunities. You avoid the assumption that Buyers need your stuff, so you are much less likely to pursue losers. Myopic pursuit of losers is, by the way, estimated to account for 50% of lost sales.

Instead, dive quickly into the buyer's world to see it from their point of view. I have covered that in other articles, so I won’t repeat it here. However, as a reminder, focus on the Buyer’s desired future. For example:

If (whatever we're discussing) was working the way you’d like it to, what would that look like?

Based on the Buyer's response, you can then get to their POV by asking:

What will that mean to you if you get that?

C is for Collaborate

As trust grows and you learn of Buyer POVs, you can collaborate with Buyers. They welcome your guidance.

In this step, you’ll explore Value Gaps, which are the differences between the desired state you discovered in Engage and a Buyer’s current state.

When you have clarified their desired future state, point B, say, you can then work back to the Buyer's present state, e.g., Point A, thus exploring a path to get from A to B. Remember the days of paper maps? First, you locate your destination and then work back to your current location to discover the path.

You do the same here, exploring the path simply by asking:

'What do you feel needs to happen for you to be able to have (desired future)? '

Whatever the response of Buyers, that naturally leads to this question:

What prevents that from happening now?

And then, ‘what needs to change?’

Or ‘how do you see that working? Which provides deeper insights into their POV.

Through these and similar questions, you iterate to a desired outcome and path to achieve it.

This is a significant departure from traditional Needs Discovery, which focuses on the present, e.g., ‘What are your problems/challenges?' which is what your competitors will be doing. By focusing on the future, you’re initiating a different discussion, which Buyers far more enjoy as it’s an aspirational and future-focused conversation rather than a problem-focused interrogation.

I is for Co-Inventing Solutions

This is where the magic happens. Buyers want to collaborate with you to create ('invent' works for the acronym!) their solution.

Invent is a process of exploring approaches (by discovering Sources of Value) to close the Value Gaps. It is much like a 'Needs' Discovery. However, deeper and more meaningful than the traditional variety as you now understand Buyer POVs.

You collaborate with buyers to jointly identify their needs instead of having them tell you the needs they already have in mind. Usually, you will also come up with differences that your competitors don't get to discover.

You can now start collaborating with Buyers to co-invent their solution, which is described in generic non-product-specific language. You are creating a specification, which Buyers could, if they wish, use to call bids. I have often encouraged them to do that and always won the business.

Note that at this point, you haven't mentioned or even inferred a product (much less a price).

The conversation has been entirely in buyer or generic language. Your total absence of self-interest is why they trust you to help them create their solution.

When you have a consensus on what the solution should look like and a budget cost, you can then ask the question:

If you could get a product/service that did A,B, C, and D (list out the agreed attributes/functions) and cost $NN, would you buy it?

The answer will be yes or no.

If no, you can ask ‘why not?’ and go through Invent again and iterate a solution until you get a ‘yes’.

Once the answer is a yes, you then know how to frame your offer.

D is for Dovetail your Offer

You Dovetail (a carpentry expression for those unfamiliar) or match your offer to the Buyer's solution. And this is the first mention of your product or service. Critically, you are offering the Buyer his/her solution, not your products. What do you imagine s/he does?

You're right! You're set to ask for the order as they say.

E is for Endorsement of your offering.

Given that your offer dovetails to the Buyer’s solution, you can now seek their endorsement. Bear in mind that in a complex sale with multiple Buyers, you need the endorsement of each individual.

Thus, you use DECIDE to guide each Buyer through their personal journey.

Notice how this Buyer-Centric sequence is virtually the opposite of traditional methods. Product and pricing come at the end of the Buyer Journey rather than near the beginning. There’s no friction here, no pushing products, no justifying or defending prices.

There is zero salesy behavior, which no Buyer wants or deserves. No tension and no negotiation.

It is very easy to adhere to The Seller Code

In summary, instead of pitching products/services, you collaborate with Buyers to help them clarify their desired outcomes and then create their solutions, which will give them that. Buyers buy because you have offered exactly what they want at the agreed-upon price.

You didn’t have to quote it until you were ready!

Can you see this approach working for you? Let me know in the Comments. And if not, tell me that too and why not.

COMPLIMENTARY COACHING

I appreciate the ‘no-price’ approach may seem a bit out there, so I offer FREE, no-strings coaching sessions for anyone who would like to explore how to apply it in their sales situations. DM me if you'd like to join a session.

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I stand for integrity and transparency in selling and act by The Seller Code. Please join me.