customer acquisition
Most salespeople try to be a “trusted advisor” in their customer acquisition conversations. They ask their buyer a lot of questions, use those questions to diagnose the buyer’s needs, and then present a solution that fits the criteria.
These salespeople assume their prospects will ultimately decide between their solution or a competitor’s solution. But the truth is, 60-80 percent of deals end in “no decision.” Prospects don’t see a compelling enough reason to change from their current situation, so they decide to do nothing at all.
In other words, your biggest enemy is not your competitors—it’s the status quo.
Over the years, psychological studies have shown that people have an innate aversion to doing something different than what they’re doing today. This cognitive bias is known as Status Quo Bias, and it causes a level of subconscious inertia that you need to overcome in your acquisition conversations.
New prospects aren’t asking themselves why they should choose you—they’re asking themselves, “why should I change?” It’s your job to convince them to change by telling a powerful story that makes their current situation seem unsafe and unsustainable.
It’s no longer sufficient to say, “Tell me what you want; I’ll get it for you.” Buyers now want salespeople to tell them what they should want. They want you to do the heavy lifting of sifting through all the information out there and delivering new insights into what they’re missing that will improve their performance.
In this collection of science-backed resources, you’ll discover counterintuitive but effective approaches that will improve your sales and marketing conversations. You may not find the most popular techniques here, but you will find what’s most effective, based on science and research.
