A question we should all ask ourselves: “How Do Our Customers Buy?”

 I had a recent discussion with a start-up CRO. We were talking about his company and their selling strategies. One of the first questions I asked was, "How do you sell to your customers?"

A simple question for sure. I intended to find out all the techniques used to get a customer to buy their products. As part of our focus at PartneReady, we try to find out different methods to drive alternative revenue streams, so it was a natural question. The CRO went into great detail about how his team sells. As I was listening intently, I started thinking, "Well, that's the method, but why?" Then it hit me. I started with the wrong question.

As part of my bag of tricks as a partner professional, my first phase in creating a partner strategy is a proprietary method of discovery that I call the "Value Chain of the Customer." In the Value Chain method, the first steps are to ask three questions: 1) To do his/her job, what does the product & service ecosystem look like for the customer? 2) How does the customer buy? 3) Who influences the customer in the buying decision?

As I listened, I realized that he and every CRO, Head of Sales, Marketer, or Founder, also need to use the Value Chain method before deciding on selling techniques. In this case, I was able to point out that he was fighting an uphill battle on certain things, and maybe a couple of different partnerships could help him overcome the challenges he was having. For him, selling direct is one method he could use, but it's not the only way.

 

So I learned my lesson. Next time I start a conversation with a leader, I will not ask, "how do you sell?” As the first question. Instead, I will ask, "how do your customers buy?” It is a question we should all ask ourselves before charting any sales strategy. 

{story retold with permission from my phone guest...thank you! }