#MiPDV – You Can Learn A Lot By Walking Around

It was one of those meetings which you’ll never forget.?

We were scheduled to meet the Chief Information Officer of a retail customer first thing on Monday morning. The team wanted me to visit the CIO to show him how important his company was to our business. I was honored that they asked me to be the face of the company.?

To accommodate the CIO’s schedule, the meeting was set for before normal business hours. There was little time for a pre-meeting briefing.?

Because I had to travel to attend the meeting, I arrived on Sunday morning. It was going to be an important introduction: it would be my first time to meet the CIO, although the local team knew him well. There was no way I was going to be late!?

Having arrived early, I went to the city center to spend the day. It is a very walkable city, and getting some time outdoors is the perfect way to adjust to a new time zone.?

While I was wandering in the city center, I turned the corner and saw the flagship store for the retailer where this CIO worked.?

Once I saw the store, my wandering ended and I had a plan: I went into the store and walked every aisle on every floor. It is a large store, and it took most of the afternoon to cover everything!?

Fast forward to Monday morning.?

Instead of the usual pleasantries when you meet someone for the first time, I decided to try a different approach: I introduced myself and told him, “I was in your store yesterday.”?

He was taken aback – I don’t think he had ever had a vendor tell him that.?

What was scheduled as a 90-minute sales call quickly turned into one of the most memorable meetings I’ve had in my career. He spent the entire time grilling me on what I saw, what I experienced, and any thoughts I had to make the store better. We spent very little time talking about the technology proposal we wanted him to accept, but instead focused on what was clearly most important to him.?

And it forged a relationship that lasts to even today.?

Yes, he did accept the proposal and buy from us, but more importantly, we formed a bond that helped the local team distance themselves from the competition for several years. I continued to visit the CIO when I traveled to the city, even seeing him after he left that role and moved to ?different companies.?

How he reacted to the introduction highlighted a few lessons that have used ever since:?

• Customers care more about their problems than your solutions. Most sellers focus on the features of their products or the services they can provide, but customers have problems they need to solve. They are not there to help you fulfill your quota.
• Customers need to know that you understand their problems. We distinguished our position by showing interest in their business first, not our solution. Based on his reaction, I may have been the first vendor that focused on his business instead of my sales pitch.
• You can learn a lot by walking around. By spending an afternoon in the store, I learned the products they carried, how the store was laid out, and how the staff interacted with their customers. So when the CIO spoke about how they conduct some of their annual sales events, it was easy for me to understand what additional pressures it placed on his team.?

It was also confirmation that as leaders, we need to get out of the office and into the field. It’s the only way for us to truly understand what our team members face every day.?

And if your team is internally focused but deals with sellers, they need to go into the field too – even attending sales calls and working deals if they support sellers – to better understand how to help their colleagues.?

We all can learn a lot by walking around.?

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That’s mi punto de vista #MiPDV.

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