The key distinction between One-Up salespeople and people presently One-Down is that the One-Up particular person creates an incredible worth contained in the gross sales dialog, whereas the One-Down salesperson’s method appears like a waste of time.
The Limits of Being One-Down
The One-Down salesperson makes use of discovery to pursue two outcomes. The primary end result is to place themselves as credible by answering the query “Why us?” This method creates anti-value as a result of it wastes time with out providing any potential achieve. The second desired end result is to determine the shopper’s drawback and their ache. What you’ll discover about One-Down salespeople is that they ask questions primarily to amass info from their contacts. The questions profit the One-Down salesperson with out serving to the shopper enhance their place.
By speaking about their firm, their shoppers, or their services, the One-Down salesperson does the alternative of their first goal: they fail to show they’re credible. This legacy method can not set up credibility or relevance as a result of most resolution makers have skilled it sufficient to evaluate whether or not or not the salesperson may also help them. If the choice maker isn’t certain if a gross sales dialog is likely to be useful to them, as quickly because the One-Down salesperson speaks, they take away any doubt, inflicting their contact to take a look at their watch.
“When there isn’t any distinction between one assembly and the subsequent, that dialog is a commodity.”
The opposite issue that defines a One-Down salesperson is how they use questions in discovery. They restrict their inquiries to buying info and desperately give attention to the shopper’s drawback and their ache. The One-Down salesperson asks questions to determine the best way to recommend that their firm’s resolution is ideal for his or her potential shopper. The rationale consumers recommend they now not need to have interaction with salespeople has little to do with salespeople being pushy and way more to do with their being boring and unable to create worth contained in the gross sales dialog.
The One-Up Discovery
You will need to set up your self as somebody credible and related, the form of particular person you’ll belief that will help you make an essential resolution. It is also essential to current your self as an individual whose experience and expertise would shut gaps in your contacts’ information. The One-Up salesperson pursues plenty of totally different outcomes largely unknown and unavailable to the one who is One-Down.
The center and soul of being One-Up might be summarized as “I do know one thing you do not know. Could I share it with you?”
To ascertain their credibility, the One-Up salesperson has a working information of the forms of issues, challenges, and alternatives to anticipate once they meet with their potential shopper. As an alternative of reciting the fun and wonders of their firm and their resolution, they start the dialog by placing the potential shopper’s scenario in context, demonstrating they’re conscious of the developments and forces that trigger their shopper to wrestle to provide the outcomes they want.
This method establishes credibility that the legacy approaches can not as a result of it demonstrates the salesperson’s worth reasonably than forcing them to borrow status from their firm. Extra nonetheless, opening the decision with an government briefing (or one thing prefer it), the One-Up salesperson updates the shopper’s assumptions, offering them with a higher-resolution lens by way of which to view their scenario.
The second objective of the One-Up salesperson is to assist the shopper study one thing about themselves, their scenario, their outcomes, their potential, and the selections they might want to make to enhance their outcomes. As an alternative of asking questions to achieve info, as essential as that is likely to be, the One-Up salesperson asks questions designed to show the shopper one thing essential about the best way to enhance their future outcomes.
The Reality About Discovery
It would not take lengthy to find out if a salesman is credible and related. The one approach to show credibility is by having information, expertise, and experience that your shopper can sense in the gross sales dialog. Since you solely have one probability to make a great first impression, the One-Down method eliminates any hope of being credible or related.
If consumers desire to keep away from salespeople, it is as a result of the One-Down method is not useful sufficient to deserve their time and a spotlight. An lack of ability to create worth is the dominant motive why the contact refuses to schedule a second assembly.
“You’re within the One-Up place when your superior information and expertise advantages your shoppers.”
Few would argue in opposition to the concept that you win or lose within the discovery stage of the gross sales dialog. “Worth creation” comes from transferring the information that makes you One-As much as your contact. This improves their information and expertise, eradicating them from a One-Down place and rushing them towards their very own model of One-Up.
The one that supplies the best assistance is the one greatest positioned to create a choice to purchase from them. As a result of the One-Up method creates larger worth than the One-Down method, shoppers discover the gross sales dialog to be useful, making it straightforward to amass a second assembly.
The New Discovery
The One-Up method to discovery removes questions that aren’t useful to the shopper and dialogue factors which can be higher had later within the gross sales dialog. As an alternative of asking concerning the shopper’s issues, One-Up salespeople have interaction their contacts with a dialog that explains the foundation causes of their challenges.
As a result of the One-Up salesperson has the mental humility to know they’re additionally One-Down—for instance, about how issues work on the shopper’s firm—they ask their contacts to coach them. However on the identical time, they provide questions that educate the shopper one thing that might assist to enhance their place and outcomes.
From a shopper perspective, a One-Up model of discovery appears like working with a marketing consultant who has the expertise to offer distinctive counsel, good recommendation, and suggestions that guarantee improved outcomes.
