The Power of “I Don’t Know if I Can Help You”
Beyond merely having a healthy skepticism of salespeople, the last thing modern buyers want to hear from salespeople is that they understand all of their challenges and, with certitude, can solve them with their product or service. To stand out from the crowd and arrive at better outcomes for themselves and their customers, bringing a healthy mix of preparedness, success stories, curiosity, and humbleness to buyer interactions can be the difference between “Not interested”, “You have my attention”, and “Where do I sign?”.
A recent case study
I recently secured a discovery meeting for a client with an executive-level prospect and accompanied them. While the prospect fit their ideal customer profile, there is limited available public information, and we thus had to do some digging to have much to bring to the conversation beyond “this is how we help similar companies”. After standard introductions and a reiteration of our initial rationale for our outreach, it became evident that the prospect, while cordial, was skeptical and felt that it might not be an ideal time to consider a relationship.
The conversation turned dramatically when my client said the magic words that I teach but did not explicitly tell them to say: “I don’t know if we can help you”. Instead of going into standard objection-handling mode or attempting to challenge the prospect, my client displayed a confident “we would like your business if it makes sense for you, but we are successful enough that we don’t need it” approach.
Upon doing so, the buyer was caught off guard and pleasantly surprised that my client did not come off as a stereotypical product-pitcher. Rather than act defensive, he opened up about his full range of challenges and objectives, and we helped him prioritize them. We were then able to make recommendations and introduce services/solutions that he was not aware of and were not part of the rationale for our initial outreach. The result? A “send me some information and try again in six months” turned into “I’d like a proposal and to schedule a time to review it together” (which we did in real time, not via an email).
The dynamics that made it possible
- Buyer receptivity is paramount
The old adage of “The buyer doesn’t care what you know until they know that you care” rings true. Until a buyer trusts you and realizes that you have their best interests in mind, your value proposition will likely fall on deaf ears. Creating what ASLAN Sales Training calls “fertile soil’ for discussion is critical.
- Being prepared is not the same thing as being overconfident
While “doing your homework” helps establish credibility and demonstrates respect for a prospect’s time, that does not mean that a standard pitch or being highly assumptive about how you can help a prospect will be effective. Demonstrating that you are prepared, while simultaneously seeking to learn more and collaboratively explore if further discussion makes sense, is more effective.
- Use the prospect’s own input to secure a next meeting
Once a fertile environment has been established and the prospect shares pertinent information, assuming there is in fact a strong business case to continue an evaluation, leverage it to make a recommendation. “Because you mentioned X is important to you, I recommend that we take a closer look at Y…”.If you take the approach my client did, making a recommendation may not even be necessary – the prospect may make it for you.
