Narratives and Analytics: The Yin and Yang of a Sales Cycle

By Geoffrey Moore

Author – The Infinite Staircase: What the Universe Tells Us About Life, Ethics, and Mortality

With my latest book, The Infinite Staircase, I took a break from business writing to do some work in philosophy (you can take the boy out of academia, but you can’t take academia out of the boy).?What I am now learning, however, is that the two fields are not as separate as I thought.?In particular, two distinctively human capabilities I dug into deeply were narratives, our penchant for telling stories and coming up with ideas, and analytics, our ability to pressure-test those ideas to see how worthwhile they really are.?It turns out that these same two capabilities are the key to understanding how a sales cycle unfolds and what you need to focus on at each turn.

It starts with narrative.?And please, don’t call it content!?I mean, really, how inspired would you be if someone offered to send you some content??Instead, understand that prospect interest is ignited by stories—business stories to be sure—but ones that have plots and characters and actions and outcomes, and an audience that is always looking either for a happy ending or a cautionary tale (as long as it happens to someone else).?Stories pique interest.?But can you believe them??

Enter analytics.?What facts back up this story??Are there customer references??What are the analysts saying??Does the story itself seem credible??Has anybody around here had any experience with this??Prospects want to take time away from direct engagement to do a little due diligence on their own before they are willing to open themselves up to the next call.

Back to narrative.?Prospects take our next call because they want to see if our offers can meet their needs.?But if we start talking about features and functions, we are going to lose them.?So now is the time to talk use cases.?We are not promoting these cases yet.?We are using them as a diagnostic tool.?Does this one sound like your situation??Oh, this other one is a better fit then.?Tell me more about the situation you are dealing with.?Really??Was it more like A or more like B???The more we can get the prospect talking about themselves, the more rapport we are building.?And the more astute and informed the questions we are asking, the greater trust they are willing to put in us.

Back to analytics.?This time we are looking for product fit—specifically, does the prospect’s use case match up to our offerings in a productive way.?Now it is we who are doing the due diligence, qualifying the opportunity in terms of importance, urgency, readiness to act, resources, budget, and the like.?Based on this work we will set expectations with our management and prioritize the account appropriately.?

Back to narrative.?We want to propose an offer, one that will drive a buying decision.?Again, this is a job for narrative, not for analytics.?Why??Because narrative is the accelerator and analytics are the brakes.?Analytics are designed to keep us out of trouble.?No one buys for ROI.?Rather, they refuse to buy for lack of ROI.?Instead, what you want to propose is a scenario, to show how your offering will lead from the current problem state to the future solution state.?You can amplify this narrative with a solution-based demo where you illustrate a day in the life of your target end-user on a BEFORE/AFTER basis.?Done well, these can be game-changers.

Back to analytics.?The prospect loves the story, but we are still a long way from a sale.?First things first, just how is this all going to work??We need to provide a demo or even a prototype or proof of concept.?We need to lay out the workstreams, the bill of materials, the timeline, the resources, the deliverables.?We need to put a ballpark price on the whole project.?Then we need to sit down with the prospect and tune this work plan to the specific needs and realities of the situation.?Getting the prospect involved, getting their fingerprints on the document, makes not only for a better first but for a deeper buy-in at their end as well.

Back to narrative.?This is the big one.?This is the close.?It is a narrative that is delivered to the decision-maker and the cohort of recommenders in support.?It will speak to the economic buyer in terms of impact on the enterprise and return on investment, to the end-user in terms of gains in efficiency and effectiveness, and to the technical team in terms of features, functions, and fit with the current infrastructure and desired future architecture.?It will tell the story of the journey, honoring the effort put in by everyone involved and showing a deep understanding of both the problem and the solution.?It will lay out the full scope of work, the various parties who will be involved, the timeline of the effort, and the cost entailed.?And it will close with a commitment to customer success coming from an executive sufficiently senior to back it up.

And, finally, one last pass at analytics.?This is the contract and the P.O.?Purchasing and legal are the last bastions of analytics.?Their job is to be deeply skeptical of narratives of any kind and, left entirely to their own devices, they would normally end up stalling most deals.?Here is where the inside sponsor on the customer end has to lean in, not to oversee their work, but to keep it moving.

The Key Takeaway

Sales cycles are a back-and-forth dance between narrative and analytics, and most of us are better at one than the other.?That means we need to play to our strengths and partner to our weaknesses.?It also means we need to honor the back-and-forth itself to make sure that both domains are given their fair share of airtime.?The bigger the deal, the more important getting this dance right is.

That’s what I think.?What do you think?

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