Questions That Help You Understand the Other Side's Constraints

Here's a discovery question that helped me sell my first 7-figure Enterprise deal as an AE. Prospect was looking for negotiation training. The company I was working for didn't sell negotiation training. Instead of trying to convince her negotiation wasn't the right answer, I sought to understand why they were looking to solve for negotiation. I asked, "How did the leadership team arrive at negotiation as the right problem to fix?" Her: "Because we sell a commoditized product. Customers don't see a difference between our parts and our competitors'. We keep losing to low-cost competition. Every deal is turning into a price war." Me: "This may be an awkward question, but, is there actually a difference?" Her: "When it comes to our ability to outperform on reducing plant downtime - yes." Me: "And, how often are customers factoring the cost of excess downtime into their decision?" Her: "Not enough. They're usually just looking for the cheapest replacement part." Me: "Does the negotiation phase feel like the right time to raise that?" Her: "No - it's too late in the sales cycle." Boom. That was the magic moment. That was the moment SHE introduced doubt that negotiation was the right problem to solve. It became her a-ha moment. Her realization. Her idea. It opened the door for me to share a different POV on an alternative root cause of the known problem. That led to a meeting with the ELT to discuss root causes, not solutions. TLDR: People hate to be told they are wrong. Help them revisit their own beliefs/assumptions by seeking to understand HOW they arrived at a conclusion. There's a lot of insight to be gained by asking, "How did the team arrive at X as the right problem to solve?".

I was being sold to last week and mentioned I'd need to loop in my CFO & COO The AEs response eroded trust: "How do we get it done without them?" Look, folks, don't try and circumvent a buyers decision process It makes you look desperate, self-serving, and out of touch You need to understand how companies make decisions and lean into that Let's play this out, say I did go along with their ploy Guess what would happen when the invoice came due? Conner would kick my @$$ and wonder what I was up to Guess what would happen when marketing would need to get looped in? Braedi would wonder why she wasn't consulted before we made a change I would look like I didn't respect my team I would have eroded a tremendous amount of political capital And set a bad precedent Salespeople, when someone says they need to loop in others Don't act surprised, put out, or like this isn't normal Instead, ask questions, like: 1. What will their roles be in the decision process 2. What will they need to see to feel good about the change 3. When you've got them involved in the past, what did they ask you for 4. After we meet with them, what typically happens from there 5. Where do you think this sits on their priority list These are the questions you should be asking... Never try to fracture how a company makes decisions Lean in for understanding instead

Salespeople: When your buyer asks for a discount: Before you do anything else, ask what's driving them to need it. DON'T respond by haggling. DON'T respond by defending price. DO respond by seeking to understand. This is really simple but I rarely see it done. Example: Yesterday I had a sales meeting with a finance leader. He was looking to finalize a purchase of pclub.io for the sales team. But he wanted me to take 15% off the price. Me: "What's behind that ask? What's making you need 15% off beyond wanting to get the best deal you can?" Him: "We have a funding partner that will automatically approve projects like this under [$XX,XXX]. 15% off takes us under that threshold." Me: "What happens if you're above the threshold?" Him: "We can still get it done, but there's a lot of paperwork, and it will take a month or two. We can move forward in a week if we get this under the threshold." After a few more minutes, we found a creative idea. They needed licenses for their SDRs. They needed licenses for their AEs. If we sold a separate contract for each, both contracts would be under the threshold. Which fits their funding partner's criteria. And we could get those "two" deals done in a week instead of two months. Without me giving a 15% discount, which would be unfair to our other customers. Here's what I'm NOT saying: I'm not saying you should go replicate that exact idea we landed on. This was a unique situation. And it's not the point of the post. Here's what I AM saying: Salespeople assume too much when buyers push on price. Sometimes, they're just trying to posture. But sometimes, there's a real constraint driving the ask. And sometimes, you can solve for the constraint without discounts. But you can't do that until you ask. Ask the question. Make your quarter-ends easier (for you and the customer). P.S. Here’s six (advanced) SaaS sales skills that can help you grow from $200k per year to $1M per year over time: https://lnkd.in/g8mixtVc