An Expert

Your prospects don’t need a product; they need an expert.

I’m sure this has happened to you before. You go out to your vehicle, and it won’t start. It sounds like it should start, but it doesn’t.

You look under the hood, and everything seems to be in place. Nothing is disconnected or appears to be showing signs of failure. Suddenly, you realize you have a problem and need an expert to figure it out.

You’re not looking for a particular part or service because you don’t know which part isn’t working and what service needs to be done.

You need knowledge. You need to speak to an expert who can diagnose and fix the problem.

The same applies to your prospects in sales.

They have identified a problem and cannot determine the cause or what is needed to resolve it. You may have the exact product they need, but they don’t know it yet.

The ‘car won’t start’ scenario above is one I personally experienced. I knew there were a ton of service centers near me that could potentially diagnose and repair my vehicle. They all claim to have certified mechanics with years of experience and would do the job right the first time.

Just like your competitors. They all offered a service and product to meet my needs. But who is the best?

Here’s where the rubber meets the road (pun intended). I have a lot of experience working on vehicles. I don’t know everything, but I know enough to assess who is the most qualified to meet my needs.

From the technician’s questions, I would know the depth of their knowledge and how focused they were on resolving my issue, not just selling their diagnostic services.

There would be a conversation around what was occurring before the problem to establish baseline performance and where to begin looking.

They would also be able to articulate a few immediate thoughts ranging from the possible but not as likely causes to the more highly probable causes and the explanations of how they would cause the problem and what would be required to fix them.

Your clients are no different. They have plenty of experience in their field and realize several companies provide products and services that will resolve their issue. So, they will use their expertise to find the most qualified professional to get the job done.

The fact that they are informed is a blessing in disguise. A knowledgeable prospect allows you to display your expertise quickly. Being able to do that will instantly earn you the right to ask questions and begin to talk through possible solutions. They will also help you become better at selling along the way.

This is why your prospecting message should focus on your expertise, not your products.

Your products may provide the solution, but your expertise is needed to guide them to that conclusion.

Your product is merely a tool, like a socket set to a mechanic, so it’s more important to show why that tool being used in your hands will provide the best outcome.

Using your prospecting message to convey the types of problems that customers you have worked with were experiencing and how you were able to solve them will go much further.

Talk about the standard, obscure, and misunderstood problems. You will increase the odds of a prospect reacting positively to you by seeing that you resolved the same issue or one very close to the one they are currently experiencing, elevating you above your competition.

Discuss the questions you asked and the investigative diagnosis you performed into the business to get to the root of the problem, and you will be conveying your genuine concern for solving problems and not just selling products and services.

You can also discuss problems that a prospect may face based on actual events leading up to a current client misfortune and explain how it could have been avoided or if it was unavoidable because of the products they had and that having moved to your products before the failure would have saved them time and money.

Now, you’re even getting the attention of those who are not yet experiencing a problem but can see that they are on a similar collision course with the disaster your client faced and should instead reach out to you before it’s too late.

Follow up your examples of problems that you solved with how your products addressed those problems, fit the needs of those clients, and add additional information about the features your products have that made your company the clear choice for not only solving this problem but also putting measures in place that ensure that there won’t be any other issues in the future.

You now have the winning formula for prospecting.

Chad is an award-winning senior sales leader, public speaker, and author with 25 years of experience managing client accounts in the digital technology, SaaS, automotive, advertising, and telecommunications industries. He has served in large multi-national public companies and smaller privately held organizations, modeling, building, and scaling high-performance sales teams throughout the U.S.

In 2022, Chad founded Best Life Ventures, LLC, utilizing his career experience to advise, train, develop, coach, and mentor sales leaders and their teams through fractional leadership and consulting. He also provides one-on-one coaching for sales leaders.

Contact Information

email: chadjohnson856@gmail.com

LinkedIn: LinkedIn.com/in/Chad-Johnson

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