1001 ways to influence the buyer

1001 ways to influence the buyer

Transcript

Hi everyone,

I have worked in a large organisation for a long time and one of the key frustrations with managing my internal stakeholders was that I wasn’t always able to motivate them to support one of my projects or something similar.

The reason was very simple. It was because my objectives were different from their objectives. So, for them, it didn’t make sense to support me, because it wasn’t aligned with their priorities and they had so many others things to do. Something wasn’t working for me here.

A few years ago, I made the connection that this is exactly what happens when sales professionals try to manage their buyers. They often get frustrated because they don’t get the results they want from their dealings with buyers.

Similar to my experience from the past, sellers are often focused on a single solution to the problem and they get frustrated when this doesn’t work.

I’ll share a short story that changed my perspective:

Close your eyes for a second and imagine you are walking outside in nature and you feel like you’re going on a long journey. You are walking through a meadow and you feel the grass beneath your feet. All of a sudden you see a large wall in front of you which blocks your path. Since you want to continue your journey you need to find a way to get to the other side.

So, what can you do?

Allow me to make a couple of suggestions.

You can…

  • Find a ladder and climb over it
  • Look for a hole in the wall
  • Try pushing the wall over
  • Walk to the side and see if you can find a door
  • Call somebody and ask for help
  • Dig a hole underneath etc. etc.

There are literally hundreds of potential solutions to this simple situation.

Now, the same thinking can be applied to your relationship with your buyer. Bearing in mind that you can easily come up with dozens of solutions with a simple wall, can you imagine how many solutions you have when dealing with the complexity of a human being.

The key message I have for you here is: don’t be discouraged if plan A doesn’t work. There are a thousand and one ways to get to your desired result with your buyer. You just haven’t found the right route yet. Keep on exploring.