No Decision. Our biggest competitor.
No Decision
Go back and take a look at all of your lost deals YTD and reasons those deals are lost.
Yes, those reasons aren't often reliable or consistent, but you won't have to go very deep to know that the number one reason deals are "Lost" is from the dreaded "No Decision" or its evil cousin, "Went Dark."
So how do we defeat this ghost of a competitor?
We start by refocusing our team on the Buyer's business.
ICP Training
Let's start by looking at the training and information we provide the front-line members of our revenue team (sales reps, marketers, onboarding, customer success and support reps, etc.).
5% of the time is spent on the Buyer and even then, only at a high level (size, industries, user/champion, etc.). The other 95% is spent on us, especially our product.
Do we need to be experts in our product? Of course! But we can only convey the value our product delivers if we thoroughly understand the Buyer's business and the ecosystem into which our product fits.
Most importantly, by not providing our front line revenue team a solid understanding of our customer, they are left pushing the solution to convince the Buyer they have a problem.
That does not help the Buyer get to decision confidence.
About a week ago, we connected with Jen Allen-Knuth, who spent 18 years as an Enterprise seller with CEB/Gartner and Challenger. Yes, she sold sales methodologies to sellers.
She has a great point of view on this very issue 👇
Problem First, Then VBF
Features deliver Benefits that create Value.
But that is not how Buyer's think.
They start with a Problem. More accurately, symptoms of a larger underlying problem which sets off the 4 Phases of Problem Acceptance:
Do I have a problem?
If so, how big is it?
Can I get away with avoiding it, for now?
If not, what are my options?
Notice that the first three phases are focused on problem definition. It is not until phase four that the Buyer is forced to consider options to solve, which may not include buying anything.
This is why providing our entire revenue deep a deep understanding of our Buyer's business and their obstacles is so important.
We can't get to Value unless we start with the problem.
Once we do, we should not start with Features. Features are simply tools and over indexing on them forces the Buyer to determine how these tools work to deliver the value they seek.
Last week, we connected with Emma Stratton, who has two decades of experience in B2C and B2B messaging. She shared with us her "VBF" framework.
Value: Start with the value proposition that directly addresses the customer’s most pressing problem.
Benefit: Follow with the benefits—how the product or service solves that problem.
Feature: Only after establishing the value and benefits, mention the specific features of the product.
It's important to note the Emma stresses focusing on the most pressing problem (not every problem we solve).
In this era of attention deficit, more information actually reduces decision confidence. So we need to be prescriptive and that only happens when we've aligned problem to value received.
You can get started with this approach, TODAY!
Interview your internal customer experts and have them share their insights on the business, primary problems, and the root causes of those problems for our ICP.
This process will reveal common themes. Bring these together to share with the team.
Start asking, weekly, "what information can we provide the Buyer that will help them make a more confident decision," which means they are confident that:
They have a problem
It is big enough to fix
It can't be avoided
WE are the best option
"No Decision" is code for "Lack of Confidence." So let's fix that.
Until next week!
