Know! – Understand! – Create! – Sell?

How do you sale someone something before you understand them?

How do you know what to sell someone if you don’t know what they value or what motivates them?

These are 2 very import questions when creating and selling a product or service. If you try to sell before you know, you will end up spending lots of resources, time, and money, to educate the buyer. If the value is not obvious, then it is not valuable.

What are the components of valuable?

• Does it solve a current problem?
• Do I know the problem Exist?
• Can I afford the solution?
• How long will it take me to see a ROI?
• What unforeseen challenges will this solution create?

Does it solve a current problem? If this solves a future problem, the questions changes. you should ask why should I direct my focus on a future problem instead of the current problems and what impact will this have on business, short and long term. If you are not solving a current problem, this is a hard sell.

Do I know the problem Exist? Educating the client can be the most demanding and difficult job in promoting and selling a client. There is typically already a huge education factor involved in selling your solution over competition and adding an unknown problem to the equation can exponentially increase your effort. You have to determine if the impact of the sell is greater than your effort to deliver it. If it is, go for it, if not, well, maybe think twice before pitching.

Can I afford the solution? If the solution cost more than managing the problem, this will also be a harder sell. There maybe long term advantages but if there is not short term gain, you may have to throw in the towel before you start.

How long will it take me to see a ROI? This sort of goes hand in hand with the point above, however, this can be a great selling point for slower changing processes or very repetitive service or product models. Of course, this does not replace short term gains and affordability in the short term, but this provides a way to see a ROI over time. Typically you want to be able to show an increase in ROI year over year and not just level out after 1 or 2 years. The major downside is, as change is constant and the future is unknown, it is harder to justify long term gains over short term gains. You need to show both are possible.

What unforeseen challenges will this solution create? Providing a solution rarely means flipping on a switch. there is training, development, implementation, setup, and the list goes on. You have to be transparent in your approach to gain the trust of your client. Besides the fact that this is just good business ethics, you really need to paint the full picture. You don’t need to completely get rid of the cons, you just need to have more pros.