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Kade Herbert : Oct 17, 2019 9:45:00 AM
Imagine you have come down with an illness and you go to your doctor to find some relief. What would you think if your doctor conducted a quick examination and asked you no questions, followed by a dismissive prescription, saying you’ll probably feel better soon? At best, your doctor may have guessed right, and you might get better. At worst, your doctor may be totally wrong, and your illness could develop into something serious, perhaps even life-threatening. Shoddy diagnosis often leads to poor results.
Unfortunately, we see malpractice in the channel sales profession, too. Many channel reps do a poor job diagnosing buyers’ real problems, and as a result, they can prescribe the wrong solutions, or at worst, fail to convince customers that their solutions could be of any benefit at all. It’s hard for buyers to take action without first having a vision of what to do to solve their problem. The channel rep that accurately diagnoses a buyer’s critical business issues or potential missed opportunity — their “pain” — and who then helps the buyer to create a vision of a solution, most often wins the business.
A channel professional who doesn’t diagnose their buyer’s pain, and then help the buyer to visualize how their capabilities are going to help, unwittingly puts themselves in the position of being just another salesperson. This channel rep brings little or no value to the prospective buyer. Like a doctor that just throws pills at his patients without diagnosing them, salespeople that don’t diagnose customer pains are guilty of sales malpractice.
If a buyer doesn’t trust your diagnosis, they won’t trust your prescription. So, what does a good buyer diagnosis look like? A diagnostic questioning model that serves as a road map for consultative conversations with buyers can be of help. Here are the components of a good diagnostic model:
Channel reps should ask three types of questions when diagnosing customer pain. Each type of question solicits different kinds of information, and all are necessary to develop a thorough understanding to the buyer’s critical business issues of potential missed opportunities:
Using open, control and confirming questions, channel reps should explore three types of information in their diagnosis of a buyer’s pain:
You can pull the three types of questions and the three kinds of exploration together into a repeatable model for diagnostic conversations with buyers.
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