How to develop your sales skills beyond the needs analysis

No sales training programme would be complete without a discussion centred on what the customer ‘needs.’

If you can discover what the customer needs then you can sell them what you have, right?

Or words to that effect.

The ‘N for need’ appears in the selling acronym BANT.

It also appears in NUT$ (Needs, Urgency, Trust, Money $$) so it must be right that we focus on the customers ‘need’?

It also appears in FAINT (Funds, authority, interest, need, time)

And again in NEAT (Need, economic impact, authority, timing)

SPIN.

ANUM.

The importance of  sales skills development

Sales qualification methodologies seldom work without an N for Need but maybe that’s something that we should address?

(Do you think Jordan Belford could sell you that pen if you didn’t need a pen? “Fuck off Jordan I use a tablet.”)

Almost 10 years ago I was working with a tech start up specialising in data storage.

I went from sales coach/trainer to sales consultant to sales lead, working initially with a team of 3 SDRs and a field sales person in London.

We focused on the entertainment sector with a suite of products that replaced the old MAC Pro range.

Selling only over the phone, we sold the first unit within 24 hours – the Belfast team teed up meetings for the London contact to close out.

A £10k sale with no marketing support, digital or otherwise. Pretty good, huh?

We sold to studios, post production companies, even ITV, BBC and the post production house for Game of Thrones.

We also burnt money like it was a fashionable thing to do.

Over an 18 month period we built a pipeline of £1.5m, targeting investors based on future potential.

We thought another round of funding would be a shoe-in.

After some forensics on the pipeline, it was more of a shoo-away than a shoe-in.

See, that pipeline was based way too heavily on that N word.

Easy for an SDR to fill in the sales report with “No doubt about it, they definitely need more storage in the studio.”

No lies just no depth.

You ring any studio, post production team, archivist or editor and of course they will tell you that they need more storage.

Storage is the one thing they don’t have enough of.

So whilst they need storage, the truth is it’s the last thing they want to spend money on.

They can’t charge their client for storage – they can’t offset the cost in any way.

Truth is, data storage is a tax in the entertainment industry.

And you know how people feel about paying taxes.

Our focus on ‘need’ got us nowhere fast even though for the most part, we were speaking to the right people most of the time.

Blame could fall at the feet of the rep in London but what’s the point?

The project lasted a further 3 years or so and then fizzled out – maybe the spark had faded long before that, who knows?

Do you need to develop your sales skills?

The big learning for me is not to get fixated on ‘N for need.’

Get to the top of the chain – if you can convince the person at the top you have a chance. It’s a challenge for the people below to sell upwards – users, choosers…it doesn’t matter.

You know what the Golden rule is? The person with the gold makes the rules.

Invite conflict.

Not over the insignificant stuff but over what’s important.

That means having a better understanding of the competition, the market and that means having the ability to ask penetrating questions that will make both the seller and the buyer uncomfortable.

That also means building trust quickly.

Hard to do if you’re not genuinely curious about your work, the prospect or their problem.

Your pipeline is your lifeline – make it less ‘needs’ based and focus more on CHAMP

CHAMP
– Challenges (what are the big challenges they are facing?)
– Authority (Does the person you’re connecting with have the stripes?)
– Money (Can they afford it? Can they afford not to?)
– Prioritisation (Is solving the problem a current priority for the business?)

I know it’s a lot more complex than this but let’s face it, if your targeting is on point and you are speaking to the right kind of prospects, of course they are going to need what you’re selling, right?

If you need help in developing your sales skills or the skills of your sales team then email info@shift-control.co.uk