1: Sure. Not getting and keeping your prospect’s attention is a deal killer.
But there’s something worse.
Denial.
“Your prospect’s denial that they have a problem that needs solving in the first place,” Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer write in their book Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.
“All other challenges pale in comparison to this one,” the authors say.
When you are able to solve a problem the prospect knows they have and wants solved?
“That’s sweet living,” Erik and Tim note. Unfortunately, “it’s also uncommon.”
Instead, most of the time, your solution solves a problem “that the customer feels some pain around, but it’s still going to take some selling to get them to feel the pain vividly enough to want to fix it.”
This returns us to the challenge of denial.
“When a prospect is in denial, your normal approaches won’t work,” Erik and Tim write. “For example, you can question them to try to uncover their pain, but if they don’t believe they have a problem, your questions will get you nowhere.”
What about your “proof”?
“The prospect who is in denial doesn’t care whether you can prove your claims,” they point out.
2: As a salesperson, you can learn something from an organization whose prospects are often in denial.
Alcoholics Anonymous. Or, “AA” for short.
“Which solves a problem that almost no one is willing to admit to,” Erik and Tim observe.
“And AA has done this successfully for decades.”
What is their approach?
“AA teaches that when someone is in denial, you can’t win him over with facts,” the authors note. “You can’t convince him with data. Every time you try, the walls go up. The person says, ‘That’s not me. I don’t have that problem.'”
In sales, it’s when your prospect says: “I don’t have a security problem on my network,” or, “We don’t need better processes,” or, “We’ve got good visibility into our situation/data/environment already.”
What approach does AA take to combat denial?
Stories. Told by other members.
“What Alcoholics Anonymous has learned is that denial isn’t overcome by logic,” Erik and Tim write. “That’s because denial is an identity problem. The AA prospect doesn’t want to believe that he is like ‘those’ people who are alcoholics.
“This is why AA meetings start with members taking turns telling their stories,” they note. “The stories that AA uses are its members’ ‘before’ stories—what their lives were like before they came to AA, and how they came to learn they were alcoholics.
“And through the telling of those stories, people who are in denial start to see themselves,” the authors explain. “And that’s when they move from denial to admitting that they have a problem. They do so only when they connect with a story.”
3: So, what exactly does this have to do with you and your prospect, who is in denial?
Most salespeople use customer stories as proof that their solutions work.
A better strategy is to use your customer stories to help prospects realize they have a problem they are denying or perhaps not realizing they have.
Does AA lead with “AA saved my life” Or “AA has helped me pull my life together”?
No. They lead with, “I didn’t think I had a problem. It started with just a couple of drinks on the weekend. Then, it became just a couple of drinks every day.”
From there, the story continues with what the storyteller’s life was like before they realized that they had a problem.
This is their “before” story. Where those in denial see themselves.
Erik and Tim’s recommendation: “You need to do the same thing with your customer stories. You need to tell the story of your customers’ situation before they implemented your solution.
“It’s through the before story,” they note, “that your prospect who is in denial will start to see their own company’s story.”
Why is this so effective?
Because “it’s not the frontal assault of logic and data that overcomes denial,” they observe. “It’s the power of a story that never triggers the ‘denial’ barriers in the first place.
“A well-told story sucks your prospect in,” the authors explain. “They find themselves living in this other customer’s story. They have an emotional response to the challenges that this other customer faced and how this other customer solved the problem that caused those challenges.”
One of Erik and Tim’s clients put it this way: “When you do this well, you’ve already closed the deal before you’ve even shown them your solution.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Am I trying to convince with logic—or helping my prospect see themselves in a story?
Action: Identify one customer “before” story I can share to help a prospect recognize a problem they may be overlooking.
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