Thoughtful Thursdays – Needs versus wants
Sell the customer what they want or what they need. A question for the ages, with the comprehensive answer: “It depends.”
Yes, it depends – on many levels. A client of mine ran into a wants versus needs situation recently and learned much from the experience. This was a business to business situation involving a raw material for production.
It also involved more that one level of wants and needs. It was a technical want that would significantly impact the cost of goods with little apparent gain in product performance. An increase in product cost that might have had far reaching negative consequences to sales if the cost was to be passed through to the end user. It was somewhat analogous to using gold, when bronze meets all the needs.
So what has this to do with sales? It demonstrates the importance of calling in depth. There is more than one customer at this customer that requires their needs to be identified and met. Not only knowing the technical people, but in this case, product management as well. It is not that the end product would be any better or worse as a result, but communicating what the financial impact might be should the technical want was not measured against the need to have a competitively priced product that met company margin expectations.
I do not have an issue selling a customer what they want as long as they understand all their options and what they want satisfies all their needs in spite of being more expensive. After all, it would be cool to have a Ferrari for runs to the convenience store.
Good selling,
Richard
Have a question about sales? Contact me and I will respond.
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