Clients of The Center for Sales Strategy know that it’s more important to know your prospect than your product, and that well-defined needs lead to the most dramatic revenue opportunities. But finding customer needs is not enough.
What you’re looking for is an assignment.
The Difference Between a Need and an Assignment
A need is a way you can help (and chances are, you’ll find a lot of these). But an assignment is an important need for which the client has said they want your help.
Consider narrowing the list of needs to the client’s most urgent and important priorities in order to sell bigger with questions like these:
- “We’ve talked about a lot of areas where it sounds like I could be of help to you. If you had to narrow it down to one or two priorities that are important right now, which would they be?”
- “If we could only focus on this list of needs by working on one thing at a time, which item would come first?”
- “If your budget and time resources allow for it, I’m happy to tackle all of these issues. But thinking of the priorities you have and the resources available, which challenges should we tackle first?”
- “Which of these matters is most urgent, and which are most important?”
Remember that needs are important, but assignments are profitable. Make sure you’re distinguishing between the two.