The Decision Makers Should be Excited and All Over What I Have to Offer
Yes, there are several problems going on in the healthcare space, however, not every problem gets solved.
For starters, it’s important to note the amount of energy expenditure it will take to actually implement your solution. How many resources in terms of human capital and time will it involve?
Is the problem big enough, dollar-wise to even tackle the issue?
It’s vital that you help your potential customer to view their situation from different perspectives and discover elements or aspects of their challenges they didn’t previously recognize. And most importantly, you can’t just tell them…
Buying consensus and its evil twin, buying dysfunction, are so pervasive that many healthcare solutions providers have come to accept it as the way things are; the status quo.
Like fish in water, they’re totally immersed in it and haven’t seriously considered doing something about it because, until now, there haven’t been many viable solutions for addressing these unique challenges. That doesn’t have to be the case.
The odds are high that every buying group you encounter will harbor some internal dysfunction, even if it is well masked. No matter how good your product, your price and your pitch, if you don’t discover and engage stakeholders in the buying group and help them avoid dysfunctional dynamics, your deal is in jeopardy, big time.
According to an extensive study CEB (Corporate Executive Board) conducted, on average, 5.4 people are involved in the majority of B2B buying decisions.
In fact, when a second person gets involved, purchase likelihood plummets from 81 to 55 percent, a precipitous 26 percent drop. Purchase likelihood drops further to just 31 percent–a full 50 points below a single decision maker– when six or more stakeholders participate.
Understand the Psychology of the Potential Customer During the Sales Process
In the world of complex sales, no one wants to make a wrong decision and then be left holding the bag and looking bad.
So, even if your contact tells you that he or she is the only one making the decision, in most cases that’s highly unlikely.
Once you understand that, you’ll find it easier to swallow the news that others are actually involved in signing off on the decision.
You see, the sales environment in which you operate these days is so crowded that potential customers have trouble seeing how different you are from the competition – and many times, what you’re offering just isn’t that different.
Would you say that’s a fair statement?
What can you do to be distinctive and stand out from the competition?
Here are some ideas about how you can use his examples to help you stay focused on how you’re selling rather than on what you’re selling:
Depending on the type of healthcare solutions provider business you have, consider offering your own types of “assessment or diagnostic evaluation” that’s packed with benefits and actually helps the prospective client.
What I’ve found is that prospects pull back if they sense in any way that you are trying to exert sales pressure on them. The key here is to offer a consultation that is keyed specifically to the prospect’s problem or issues, and to make it clear that you’re offering it as a service without any expectation that a sale will result.
Things to Consider
Go for buy-in on solving the problem then agreement on the specific solution. You first have to make sure they agree they need to solve the problem, and then determine whether they’ll be interested in the specific solution.
Tailor your prospect education to each stakeholder in the buying group, but focus it on solving the larger problem that faces everyone in the group. If possible, automate the personalized education experience so you can drive agreement faster.
Lastly, identify and support a champion. That doesn’t always mean “the boss”–rather, it means the member of the group who seems most likely to be a strong proponent of change.
Use that champion to discover and engage the buying group and you’ll start to see excitement and engagement enter your sales process again.