CHAPTER 5
The Leadership Question That Changes Everything
When you know better, you do better.
—Maya Angelou, poet
How will this customer be different as a result of doing business with us? It's the question most sales managers don't ask. The few who do ignite a chain reaction that drives outstanding sales performance.
Imagine two salespeople who are about to go on a big sales call. They're both meeting with their managers beforehand. One manager asks their seller the usual questions: When are you going to close it, how much will it be? Are you dealing with the decision‐maker? Who else do we need to get involved? They're good questions; they reveal where the sales rep is in the sales process and the likelihood of closing.
Now picture the second salesperson. Their manager asks all the usual questions, but goes one step further. Their manager also asks, “How will the customer be different as a result of doing business with us?”
This question changes everything. Now, instead of only thinking about their deal, the rep is thinking about the impact on the customer. If they know the answer to this question and can articulate to their boss, it becomes the centerpiece of the story they carry forward to the customer.
If the seller doesn't know how the customer will be different as a result of buying from them, there's a problem. A seller who can't answer that question for their boss is not prepared to articulate value for a customer.
It can be a tactical question you use with a single opportunity. It's also a larger strategic question that will guide product development, marketing, and sales support. The ability to answer that question, and your pursuit of improving the answer to that question, changes everything for a team. When you ask your internal teams on a regular basis, “How will the customer be different as a result of doing business with us?” you drive more innovative product development. Marketing becomes more crisp and differentiated. Sales support teams know where to focus to help customers get the most value from your solution.
I know just how powerful this redirection can be because I've experienced it myself. In my late 20s, I worked for a small sales training and consulting firm. My boss, the VP of sales, was a man named Durwood Snead. (You can't make up a name like that.)
I'd joined the small upstart firm because I believed in what they were doing. My first assignment was to grow the Southeast business. We were starting at ground zero. At that point, we were a $5 million company.
On my first day of work, I didn't get a client list. We didn't have any clients in my region. Instead, Durwood and I started our prospect list, mapping out a plan for calling on major firms in the Southeast. Then I hit the road.
During that first year, Durwood and I met weekly for a sales pipeline review. But we did it a bit differently. When I brought up a customer's name, Durwood would ask standard sales manager questions: “When are you going to close?” and “Who needs to be involved?” But then, probably because we were both so excited about what we were doing and the impact we could have on clients, we went further.
Durwood asked questions about each prospect like, “Who are they?” and “What are their goals and challenges?” These customer‐focused questions framed our prospects as more than just targets; they were people we wanted to help. As my boss, Durwood pushed me to think more deeply than I might have been inclined to.
This was in the days before widespread CRM systems; pipelines weren't as automated as they are today. In hindsight, I'm glad we did these in person, old‐school style. It enabled Durwood, who was a decade older than me, to build belief in a young, impressionable salesperson who was on the road trying to convince potential customers to switch over from larger more established firms and do business with us.
The part I remember most about our pipeline meetings was the discussion about what was possible for our customers. We talked about how they'd be different if they did business with us. We'd imagine how their people would be better with their customers and close more sales, and how the managers would become better coaches. We'd become positively giddy discussing the ways our programs could help these companies and the people in them.
Now, after having assessed thousands of sales conversations, I realize what a gift I was given back then. Those pipeline conversations accomplished two things:
- Build belief in the salesperson (in this case, me).
- Solidify a powerful sales narrative to share with customers.
Without realizing it, I was experiencing something rare in sales. That coaching enabled me to see myself and my job differently. I tapped into a creativity and tenacity I didn't even know I had before.
You probably won't be surprised to learn that we closed a lot of business that year. In a region with no clients the previous year, we brought in over $1 million in recurring revenue. Keep in mind, the entire company had done only $5 million the year before. Not only did we bring in new business, but we brought in marquee clients: big brands that moved away from other firms to do business with us.
We were on the rise. We were making a name for ourselves and growing something we believed in.
Unfortunately, shortly after that, we got a new president who wasn't as focused on clients as Durwood was. They clashed, and my much‐loved boss left. I didn't realize how much our conversations were guiding me and driving me until we stopped having them.
After Durwood left, I began reporting to the new company president. I was selling the same programs, and we were using the same spreadsheets for sales pipelines, but the president never asked about our customers' lives and ambitions and how our programs might improve their businesses. I remember one conversation in particular where I found myself thinking, “When he looks at me, all he sees is a revenue number.” I went from being a person who made a difference to customers to being a profit center.
I quit within a year. Looking back, I have great empathy for the president. He was under huge pressure to deliver numbers. He was simply managing the business in the traditional way he'd been taught. And if I want to be brutally honest with myself, I realize, I could have been the one discussing client impact. Why wasn't I talking about how we make a difference to customers? I was the one in front of the customers seeing it firsthand. Instead, I waited to be asked, which was a big mistake.
But I also have empathy for my twenty‐something self who didn't fully understand why our story was changing and the impact it would have on our sales results.
Sometimes the universe gives you a gift in an unexpected package. I'm eternally grateful I experienced such a dramatic before‐and‐after example of how sales leaders can shape belief and point their teams toward client impact. While I didn't fully process it until years later, those early conversations laid down a template I've carried with me my entire life. I also saw the ugly truth of what happens when a business shifts its lens away from the customer.
How Words Create Worlds
The way managers talk to salespeople matters. It matters a lot.
In those conversations with Durwood, we were building and reinforcing belief by reminding ourselves about the impact our programs had on customers. We were also preparing me for the conversations I'd be having with customers.
Our discussions—about how customers' lives would be different as the result of doing business with us—gave me a different perspective on my sales activity. Weekly.
What you look at focuses your mind. That then translates into your behavior, which shifts people's perception and experience of you. A whole situation can change—all because of this gossamer thing called a thought.
The sessions when Durwood and I enthusiastically described the impact our programs would have on our customers created powerful mental pictures I carried with me into every sales call. Instead of thinking about my sales number, or even our programs' bells and whistles, I went into my sales calls thinking about the customers: how could we make life better for them and drive results for their companies? This is a model every leader can use to build belief, shape behavior, and create a more powerful team.
Try this quick exercise to see how a single question affects your mindset:
- Make a list of your top five sales opportunities.
- Look at each and ask, “What will it take to close this opportunity?”
As you answer this for each potential customer, monitor your thoughts and feelings. Do you feel good or anxious? Are you excited or worried you won't close? Are you thinking about all the steps and obstacles along the way?
Now, looking at that same list, ask yourself a different question: “How will this customer be different as a result of doing business with us?”
Don't give a rote answer. Really think the question through for each individual customer.
Will doing business with you get your customer better results? Will the customer be more efficient? Will he or she be happier or more successful? Will it position the customer's company better in the marketplace? How will your contact's job or life improve? Will his or her job be easier? How will it affect that person's end users? How will it impact his or her organization's bottom line? Will the customer make more money? Will the company save time or resources?
Then, take note of where this client‐impact line of thinking takes you. Asking “What will it take to close this sale?” prompts you to think about sales activities.
The second question—“How will this customer be different as a result of doing business with us?”—is about activating your Noble Sales Purpose (NSP).
Both questions are important. But which one do you think helps salespeople do a better job in front of customers? If you said the NSP question, you're right. We've talked about how your NSP sets your strategic direction and creates competitive differentiation. Now, let's talk about how managers can use it to drive the right sales behavior.
Traditional revenue‐focused pipeline questions prompt salespeople to look inward and thinking about themselves, their quota, and their tasks. The NSP question—how will this customer be different as a result of doing business with us?—prompts salespeople to look outward. It takes them away from a self‐oriented, task mindset to a customer‐oriented, creative, and collaborative mindset.
Moving from self‐focus to client‐impact, NSP focus builds confidence and pride within your team. Discussing how your work improves the customer's life gives a salesperson a powerful narrative as they enter a sales situation. A conversation about client impact reinforces two very important points in tangible and pragmatic ways:
- Our company makes a difference.
- I make a difference.
I distinctly remember the impact this shift in focus had on my own mindset and behavior. Instead of going into sales calls worrying about how small and unknown we were, and how I was going to make the case, I approached opportunities with confidence. I was filled with ideas and constantly looking for opportunities, because I knew we could have a significant impact on the customers. I met with more people. I asked better questions. I was more persistent and assertive. I knew I wasn't selling a me‐too generic solution; I was selling something that mattered. I had a purpose.
It's counterintuitive to talk about actualizing your NSP when you're concerned with revenue targets, but our experience tells us that this counterintuitive approach is the most effective way to improve sales performance.
It's challenging for salespeople to hold on to their sense of purpose in the cadence of day‐to‐day business. That's why you as the leader need to be proactive about bringing the NSP mindset into regular conversations with your team.
How NSP Helps You Close Bigger Deals
Front‐line managers sometimes resist emphasizing the NSP when the stakes are high because they worry it will put their people at risk of becoming service people who are too customer‐focused to close. Actually, the opposite happens.
NSP‐driven salespeople are great closers. They're more assertive than quota‐focused salespeople because they know that both the customer and their company benefit when they close a deal. They understand that their products and services make a difference to the customer, so they can't stand it for the customer not to have them.
During the year I worked for Durwood Snead, we unseated a much larger competitor on several national accounts. We were a small company, yet we were able to land big clients like Home Depot, Kimberly‐Clark, and United Healthcare.
To say that I was a true believer is an understatement.
It wasn't conversations about our programs that made me a true believer. It was conversations about the impact we had on customers. It's no coincidence I left the company a year after Durwood left. Without a boss to reinforce the positive story about how we made a difference, I was merely another salesperson who sold stuff. It became just a job.
I'm sure my sales numbers would have suffered if I had stayed. And I wasn't the only one who quit. Most of the top performers left within two years of Durwood's departure, and revenues dropped. The company was eventually acquired for one‐sixth the value it had been during the years we were winning business.
My personal story mirrors what happened at Monster.com and other now‐bygone firms like Blockbuster, Blackberry, and Sears. When the leadership language becomes about money, differentiation and innovation die. Fortunes decline when organizations stop thinking “How will the customer be different as a result of doing business with us?”
A Sample NSP Coaching Session
Let's look at exactly how and when you can use this question: “How will the customer be different as a result of doing business with us?” One of the quickest, easiest wins is using it during pipeline reviews. When there's an opportunity on the table, simply ask your rep or team the question, and listen very carefully to their answer.
Do they know how the customer might be different? Can they describe it with specifics? Do they use language customers can relate to? Or do they give a generic answer—or worse, a blank stare?
If a rep says something like, “The customer will have the benefit of our products,” dig deeper. You want your salespeople to articulate exactly how this customer will be different—not in a generic sense, but in real and concrete ways. For example, they could say, “Their systems will work faster, which will help them respond to their customers, which gives them an advantage in their marketplace.” Then ask, “What impact will that have on the company, and on your buyer?”
If the rep can't explain to you how the customer will be different, how will they ever explain it to the customer?
An effective coaching conversation has two parts: revenue and NSP. As a leader, you want to discuss the revenue first, because that's what's at the top of the salesperson's mind. You want clarity about numbers before you move to the NSP portion.
You handle the NSP portion last because that's what you want the salesperson to be thinking about during the sales call. Again, it's counterintuitive, but it results in better sales calls with higher close rates. Here's a model you can implement immediately.
Coaching Conversation, Part 1: Revenue
Using whatever CRM format or tools you use, ask the rep about the total dollar value, the close date, the competitive landscape, and so forth. Make sure the rep has clear financial goals for the account and a realistic timeline for closing it.
Next, move the conversation from revenue to customer.
Coaching Conversation, Part 2: NSP
Start with that all‐important NSP question: “How will this customer be different as a result of doing business with us?”
Your role as the coach is to prompt the salesperson to think deeply about the potential impact his or her solution will have on the customer. You want the rep to identify concrete ways to activate your NSP with this individual customer.
After you ask the linchpin question, go deeper by asking:
- How is our solution better than what the customer is doing right now?
- What impact would this have on the customer's revenue or profit margins?
- What effect will it have on that company's customers and employees?
- How will our solution make things more efficient, more cost‐effective, safer, easier, more flexible, or more fun?
- How might this make things harder, slower, or less effective?
- What are some of the less obvious ways things will change?
- Who will be affected by this? How will their jobs be easier or harder?
- How would our competition describe the impact their products or services would have?
Don't be surprised if the reps struggle to answer these questions. Most salespeople don't naturally think this way. That's why you're coaching them.
If they don't have good answers, you'll be tempted to fill in the blanks for them. Resist this temptation, because asking questions prompts the sales reps to think. The uncomfortable moment when they don't know the answer is the exact moment their wheels start turning. You want their brains to explore every aspect of this. You're trying to get them to connect the dots between your solution and the customer's goals. You want them to go find that information if they don't have it. They won't learn to think this way for themselves if you describe it for them. You want your team to internalize it.
If a salesperson still can't provide you with good answers after some prodding, you usually have one of two problems:
- The salesperson hasn't internalized your NSP.
- The salesperson doesn't know enough about this individual customer to provide concrete examples of how he or she will activate your NSP.
Fortunately, both of these problems are solvable when caught early.
If a salesperson hasn't internalized your NSP, it may simply be due to a lack of understanding. The seller may not know your products and services well enough or may not have enough industry knowledge to understand the impact that your company has on customers. The salesperson simply may need more help making the link. You can do this by providing the rep with concrete examples of the impact you've had on other customers. (See Chapter 8 for more on creating compelling customer impact stories.)
A word of caution here: do not describe the impact your solution will have on the rep's specific customer. Instead, describe the impact you've had on similar customers; then ask, “How might these issues and solutions affect your customer?” Describing other customers provides a jumping‐off point while still requiring the salesperson to think about his or her own customer in a deeper way.
The second problem—that the rep doesn't know enough about the customer to describe how that organization will be different as a result of doing business with you—is the more common scenario. The salesperson understands your NSP on a generic level but doesn't know the individual customer well enough to see how to help the customer in a meaningful way.
Top‐performing salespeople make the NSP come alive for each customer because they know very precisely how they add value.
It's probably worth saying something here about value propositions. If you already have a compelling value proposition, great. But don't worry if you don't have one, or if yours leaves something to be desired. Peruse some of the value propositions being touted on most company websites: you'll see that most of them are vague, fairly meaningless phrases that sound exactly the same as everyone else's. Sometimes they spell out the monetary return for customers. Well‐intended, yes. But focusing on the immediate monetary return can quickly lead to commoditization. It creates a transactional approach, causing your team and customers to miss the full potential impact of your solution.
Average salespeople tend to use generic value statements. They can't make their recommendations more concrete because they lack in‐depth customer information. Selling with Noble Purpose requires you link the customer's goals and your solution in more meaningful ways. It requires a clear articulation of the impact you have on the customer.
That's where you, the sales leader, come in. When you focus a salesperson on how this particular customer will be different, you open the door to a new level of understanding about that customer. This prompts the salesperson to ask better questions and make more in‐depth calls. The rep establishes more meaningful connections between the customer's goals and his or her solution, which is how you articulate true value for the customer.
Salespeople learn quickly. When you make a practice of regularly asking your salespeople NSP questions, they begin to ask those same questions of their customers. When they realize that you're going to ask the same question every time you talk with them about a customer—“How will this customer be different as a result of doing business with us?”—they start coming prepared to answer that question.
Before we leave this topic, let's look at three strategic areas where this game‐changing question can pivot your team.
Marketing
Imagine your marketing team is about to roll out new collaterals or web copy. Instead of the usual approach, the team decides that every single thing they do will focus on the question “How will the customer be different as a result of doing business with us?” When a team takes this to heart, their collaterals explore different aspects of the question; web copy asks the customer to consider their issues and the impact of solving them. Presentation decks answer the question in specific and aspirational ways. Asking and answering this question keeps a marketing team from succumbing to the generic benefits trap.
This is particularly critical in a B2B setting where complex, high‐ticket sales can often degenerate into what we refer to as a feature‐fest: endless lists of every single bell and whistle being offered, which leaves customers more confused than inspired. Instead, you want your marketing focused on the impact of your solution.
Product Development
In Chapter 2, you read about the team at Blackbaud who galvanized their organization around their purpose. When CEO Mike Gianoni joined Blackbaud, several of their products were becoming outdated. Gianoni challenged his product development team to think deeply about how they could improve life for customers. He spotlighted how the current products impacted customers and pushed the team to do more. The question “How will the customer be different as a result of doing business with us?” became a challenge. How can we improve their lives even more? What are some of the biggest, boldest things we can help our clients do? Not surprisingly, within 12 months, the product team had several breakthroughs.
Asking how the customer will be different as a result of doing business with us takes the product team out of their world and into the world of your customer.
Sales Engagement and Support
Sales support teams have grown as organizations recognize that recurring revenue is the most profitable, predictable revenue there is. Asking a sales support team “How will the customer be different as a result of doing business with us?” points them toward client impact. Instead of being reactive and simply answering client questions, they become proactive about helping clients experience the most value possible from the solution.
Lisa St. Germain, VP Sales Engagement for Fiserv, says, “Before we started asking this question, our demos were more generic. Now we zoom in on the impact for each specific customer. Asking this question before every demo and every support interaction was a game-changer. Our team gets clarity with our sales team about the specific client objectives. Our client gets more benefit, and they're more likely to renew.”
The question “How will the customer be different as a result of doing business with us?” is what we refer to as a tip‐of‐the‐spear technique. It's a linchpin that prompts a series of behavioral changes and mental shifts that have a dramatic impact on sales. It prompts salespeople to ask better questions of their customers, which then improves their business acumen, which makes them more powerful and skilled, which gives them more confidence, which takes them to higher levels, which sells bigger deals. It also prompts the departments around your sales team to focus on customer impact. It acts as a driving force across your entire organization.
It all starts with a single question.