Be the "Trusted Advisor"

Over the years, a lot of people have told me things like "You could sell ice to Eskimos in a snowstorm!". I've even seen this phrase used in ads for salespeople: The thing is - I HATE this phrase with a passion! I understand that it's meant as a positive statement and employs hyperbole, but what it misses is that a professional salesperson is a problem solver, not someone who shifts their product at all costs! I might actually sell Ice to Eskimos, but only if my Ice had some unique value proposition (Sanitary and food safe?) that the ice that they had available didn't offer.

One of the most important principles that I follow as a salesperson and lead my teams with, is being a "Trusted Advisor". I didn't invent the concept - plenty of sources recommend this approach: Keith M. Eades promotes it pretty effectively in his "Solution Selling" books and the training that Sales Performance International delivers --- Pete and Kathleen Lindsay promoted the concept with their "CompuKids" approach in the motion control industry (an approach now carried on by Katie Surkamer ).

If you want to be a "trusted advisor" to your prospects and customers, it starts with getting into a problem-discovery and solving mindset. In the end business to business customers rarely buy anything that doesn't either save them or make them money! If you can uncover the important challenges someone is having in their business and link your product or solution to solving or even reducing those challenges in a way that delivers ROI, you'll be miles ahead of your competitor who is selling on "features and benefits" or worse yet, just product features.

Finding problems starts with understanding the issues from the customer's perspective: In an ideal world, you've had enough experience with similar customers that you know what their problems likely are. Maybe, you know that there's currently a labor shortage, and getting personnel for the plant floor is both difficult and more expensive than most employers want to spend. It's a problem you've seen before and helped to solve before - This is perfect: Share a reference story about a similar customer and how your product or solution helped to resolve their issues. This will likely open a dialog with more details about the prospects' current problems. (This article isn't in-depth enough to cover what to do if this doesn't resonate - you may want to read Keith's book: "The New Solution Selling" for a much more thorough approach)

Once you've identified a problem, you want to understand who and how it impacts the organization, with an eye to actually quantifying the total costs of the issue. An issue like a labor shortage has a wide-ranging impact - Explore who else is impacted by this problem and what it's costing the company: (e.g.)

• The labor shortage is likely impacting the Plant manager who has to shift labor from function to function in order to keep production on schedule.
• This is likely also impacting the HR department who has to recruit, onboard, and train additional workers and focus on these tactical rather than strategic positions.
• Finance is likely involved because the shortages are resulting in reduced billing rates and a backlog of orders, which particularly with a smaller company could be impacting cash flow.
• Sales and Customer Service are probably hearing from customers about missed or late shipments.
• Quality may have noticed an increase in defects or failure rates as inexperienced operators are manning functions that they just aren't used to.

You can see that one seemingly small issue can have ramifications around the entire organization. It's important to understand this impact and try to quantify what the cost to the organization is across as many of these areas as possible. The best practice to quantify this is to ask the prospect or customer directly for the costs and impacts the issue is having.

Make sure that your solution is aligned to solving this pain and then repeat back the quantified issues that you find along with an ROI calculation using the customer's numbers in your Quote or Solution Presentation. Doing all of this will differentiate you and your solution and make your sponsor's job easier. In an ideal world, you've helped them understand both their problem and the costs and impacts of their problem better and you've taken steps to become a "Trusted Advisor". You stand a better chance of winning this current deal and even if you don't, you are far more likely to be invited back to the next!

Sometimes being the trusted advisor means stepping away or recommending someone else! While "Mr. Ice to Eskimos" may try to force fit a solution that doesn't solve the customer's problems (and will sometimes be successful in doing this); the "trusted advisor" will recognize early that their product or solution can't solve the problem the customer is having. When you get to this point, you often have two choices:

• Simply explain the shortcoming to the customer and move the current deal to "Closed-Lost"

or

• Introduce another company or solution that you know can solve the problem.

While either approach helps move you along the "Trusted Advisor" spectrum with the customer (you gain trust by not force-fitting or wasting their time with something you know isn't going to solve their problem) - Making the 3rd party recommendation really cements your status as a trusted advisor. It takes some guts to recommend a 3rd party, especially if you compete with them in some areas - but in the end, that customer and prospect will come back to YOU over and over on the basis of the trust that has been built.

I believe in building relationships for the long term by acting in the best interests of the customer - that sometimes means losing a deal that you and your company probably deserve to lose - but in the long run everyone will be better off!

It's about building Trust - Not selling ice to Eskimos!