with Salespeople who genuinely want to help
Ever been in this situation?
I am sure you have as I have and so has my team.
This was one of the topics of discussion during our weekly review meeting.
"Is it on purpose? Perhaps they don't want the salespeople to know the whole truth" was the question posed by one of the team members who are not very experienced.
Do you think that could be the case?
That the Buyers do not want us (the Salespeople) to know the whole truth.
But why? What do they achieve by that?
Reason 1: Image of the company
Buyers do not want to give any wrong impression of their company.
They do not want their company to be perceived as weak.
Reason 2: Buyers do not Trust the Salesperson yet.
This happens when not enough time has been spent on building trust. As a result, Buyers fear that Salespeople may misconstrue the information that is being shared.
Reason 3: Buyers want to protect themselves
One may argue that from whom do Buyers need to protect or what is the threat that haunts the Buyers?
Buyers want to protect themselves as they do not have the complete picture of the challenge that they feel exists in their department/company. They do not want to be quoted.
Buyers want to protect themselves as they are clueless about the actual situation. This happens when they are either new to the organization or do not have any insight into what is happening in the other business units to comment boldly on the issue.
Buyers do not feel the urgency to solve the matter.
As long as the issue they are facing does not become a priority, Buyers feel they can take their own time to resolve it. Hence they do not share the whole truth at the very first meeting. In fact, it takes several meetings to get the entire truth.
As a result, the sales cycle becomes very long.
Buyers fear they may not get budget approval from their CFOs.
This happens when Buyers feel that though they have a strong need for the solution, they may not be able to convince the CFO to approve the budget for the purchase. In other words, buyers feel they cannot build a strong case for the problem that they are seeking a solution for.
Now that we have analysed the Buyers' behaviour, let us discuss how salespeople should be handling such a situation.
First, address the FEAR.
As Salespeople, it is our prime responsibility that we lay Buyers' fear at rest by stating the obvious, something like in these lines
Dear Mr./Ms.Buyer,
You may not have the entire picture of the challenge/issue at this point in time. I can understand and totally relate to it. I have been in similar situations in the past.
May I suggest this, how about you share information about the heads of other Business Units, who you think, may have a similar issue(s) in their respective department.
I will meet them, get their point of view and a buy in to take this discussion further.
Do you think that will be ok with you?
When you get such a commitment from the Buyer, you build a strong foundation of trust and also the Buyer is relieved to a large extent.
There are other options available too.
If you wish to learn various scripts that you could use to approach the Buyers, then leave your email id in the comments box and someone from my team will reach out to you and share the scripts.