Many of you might be surprised, but I was actually trained as a physicist. One of the first things we learn in physics — even in high school are Newton’s Laws. One of the most quoted is Newton’s Third Law, Every Action Create An Equal And Opposite Reaction.
Funny, I never really thought of Newton as a sales thought leader, but his third law helps us understand a lot of the challenges we face in engaging our customers.
Customers don’t want to see sales people–it’s something all of us face. Perhaps it’s not because they don’t need to see sales people, but it’s a reaction to the way sales people treat customers. If all the sales person talks about is their products, if all the sales person does is focus on “getting the order,” perhaps the reaction to those sales actions is appropriate. What if the sales person changed what she did and engaged the customer in a different way? Would that provoke a different reaction from the customer?
Customers have no loyalty to vendors–but do the vendors have loyalty to the customers, or are customers just those annoying people we have to deal with to create revenue? If we treat our customers poorly, if we don’t meet their expectations in supporting them after they have bought, then why should we expect them to remain loyal? What’s the basis for continuing to do business with us? Are we the people creating the disloyalty and pushing our customers away?
Customers don’t want to see sales people until they are 70% through the buying process, perhaps that a result of sales people not creating value in the first 70% of the sales process. They can get the information they need, faster and more effectively than dealing with the sales person. What if we changed the way we engaged customers in the first 70% of their buying process, creating more meaningful value?
Customers hammer us on price, buying the cheapest alternative. Perhaps that’s a result of sales inability to differentiate on anything but price. Would customer reaction on pricing be different if sales were able the change the value the customers perceive from our solutions?
Customers are changing the way they buy–perhaps that’s a response to how we sell. If we changed how we sell, if we changed the way we engaged our customers, if we change the way we create value, perhaps we’d see a different reaction.
