2009 October Archive - Salespodder: because today’s salespeople should be tomorrow’s chief execs

Oct 7, 2009 0

Choice Of Two

0 comments so far, click here to ask a question, add your say or agree

A crew of us were enjoying breakfast opposite the building site that feels worryingly incomplete at Cape Town’s world cup venue, as the 3½ yr-old among us happily turned our table into a race-track for his toy car.

When presented with menu options, the toddler seemed restless. Fortunately it transpired that a fellow diner, originally trained as a pre-primary teacher in her S African homeland, had a trick up her sleeve. She called it the Choice of Two.

When a youngster asks for something it can begin a trail that leads only to tears. They may start off stating that they are hungry, and before you know it, only chocolate can end a tantrum. Crucially, before you reach a request that they cannot have, you head-off trauma by jumping in with a pair of options. If you snooze and fall back on saying that their eventual ‘unreasonable’ request is unavailable, it is you that will suffer.

When they initially cite hunger, you then offer a choice of two items, both of which they can have. A classic example here would be to suggest either an apple or banana. No mention of anything ‘unsavoury’.

And now I have witnessed this with my own eyes, I can safely report that not only does the kid take one of the choices, but they appear genuinely happy with the outcome.

I was quite impressed. Then it was revealed to me that this tactic works on adults too. Examples of a friend of mine’s wife successfully using this technique on him made me chuckle. But I immediately realised the solution selling potential.

There are times when we feel that a Buyer wants that which they cannot have (or we don’t think that they should). And perhaps here’s a way of re-framing such deals. Get your ‘choices of two’ in early and you can better shape the solution your way.

Oct 6, 2009 0

How Distinctive Is Your Differentiator?

0 comments so far, click here to ask a question, add your say or agree

There’s an event on Thursday in Cape Town aimed at creating a community for wannabe tech start-ups, the name of which gives you the gist; Silicon Cape.

Explaining the concept to me, one of the attendees gave an interesting example of a previous attempt to provide hub-like support for such firms. Microsoft recently held a conference for around 50 local companies that developed on their platform.

Apparently the pick of the sessions was one where the presenter asked each firm to nip out and write down what made them distinctive in the marketplace.

When back in the main theatre, there was a quick-fire round-the-room for each group to give their top distinction.

It seemed that everyone cited something about their product.

The facilitator then posed the question, if everyone was heralding the same thing in the marketplace, then how could any of them truly be distinctive?

All agreed that they must go away and choose a real differentiator.

I wonder if we solution sellers were to ask our customers from where they thought our true distinction came, whether it would both tally with what we keep telling our prospects and also, crucially, be genuinely different from what our competition say?