changingminds.org

How we change what others think, feel, believe and do

| Menu | Quick | Books | Share | Search | Settings |

Insight Selling - What is insight, and why do it?

 

Guest articles > Insight Selling - What is insight, and why do it?

 

by: Michael Harris

 

Everyone is talking about how salespeople must now learn how to deliver insights to their customers, because the internet has changed how people buy. So by the time a customer now engages a salesperson, they’re already 60% of the way through their buying cycle, because they’ve done most of their research online. So they don’t need more information from a salesperson. What they need is insight into what the information means.

But what is insight, why is it important, and how do you deliver it?

Why is insight important? Without a salesperson’s insights, customers are forced to over simplify their purchase, because they’re constrained by both time and expertise. So customers will, for instance, strip out the unique value for each supplier, because it’s just too overwhelming to compare anything other than apples to apples. And now that all products look the same, the only differentiator is price. Unfortunately, this self-service model produces a watered down solution for the customer, and it erodes the seller’s margins.

What’s insight? When Insight Sellers deliver insights, they shock customers by breaking their thought patters, and then they rescue customers by replacing the broken pattern with one that is new and improved. That’s the Aha experience. And it’s also how a salesperson reframes the customer’s buying vision when they’re already more than halfway down the road of their buying cycle.

How do you find insight? Salespeople find insight by trying to figure out what’s counterintuitive about their core sales message? Where’s the gap between what the customer believes today, and what they need to believe to buy your product? An example could be that a salesman generally gears their sales message towards why customers should buy from them vs. the competition. But because it’s counter intuitive that their largest competitor is their customer deciding to do nothing, and not another company, they lose out on a lot of business, because they’re pushing why us and the customer’s wondering why change. The Insight Seller will then offer a way to fix the broken pattern by suggesting that the salesperson’s message first addresses why change, before why us.

How to create insight? You may discover that you find insight only 20% of the time, and the other 80% of the time you have to work at trying to create it. We suggest you try to create insight by simply increasing the contrast between hell if the customer remains with their current broken pattern, and heaven if they adopt your new and improved pattern. And then add customer knowledge to make this image crystal clear.

With this approach you’re betting that the customer doesn’t yet have the insight to see this image at its maximum contrast and focus. And this is generally a good bet because customers lack both the time and expertise to do this on their own. And it's also a good bet because other salespeople are only able to paint a superficial picture of the problem, such as the customer’s current system is prone to error or lacks timeliness, because they lack the customer knowledge needed to complete the picture.

How to deliver it? But instead of using a direct approach to challenge the customer, we suggest you tell the customer a story. And because a story is about someone else, it’s non-confrontational, so it avoids the potential for the customer to feel attacked, become defensive, and then shut-down.

When the customer listens to your story, for instance, they begin to realize that they’re no longer ankle deep in problems, but that they’re really drowning in the middle of the lake. And that’s the time, not before, that the Insight Seller completes the circle of insight by offering to rescue the customer with their new and improved pattern.

In conclusion: Insight Sellers reframe their customers thinking so that they can sell value and differentiate their product. They do this by using insights to break, and then fix their customer’s thought patterns. To make sure that their sales bag is always full of insights, Insight Sellers are always looking for ways to find or create insights. And because stories make abstracts facts and figures feel real, they make customers care. That’s why charity donation letters are able to pull two times the donations when the letter is about one real person vs. facts and figures about many.

So start Insight Selling so that your salespeople are able to sell value and differentiate your product.

-Michael

 


Michael Harris: : As CxO of Insight Demand, I enjoy showing salespeople how to sell more with Insight Selling so that they are able to sell value and differentiate their product.

With a graduate degree in Finance and 12-years on Wall Street, I have learned how to build business value. I then ran a finance company that grew to 125 employees and 250MM sales, and it was here I learned the power of loading the lips of your salespeople with the right messages. I then worked as a Business Partner at a Solution Selling Sales Training company and, after 5-years, I refined the totality of my many years of experience and formed Insight Demand.

Please call/email to discuss how I can help your salespeople sell more www.InsightDemand.com


Contributor: Michael Harris

Published here on: 27-Oct-13

Classification: Sales

Website: www.InsightDemand.com

Site Menu

| Home | Top | Quick Links | Settings |

Main sections: | Disciplines | Techniques | Principles | Explanations | Theories |

Other sections: | Blog! | Quotes | Guest articles | Analysis | Books | Help |

More pages: | Contact | Caveat | About | Students | Webmasters | Awards | Guestbook | Feedback | Sitemap | Changes |

Settings: | Computer layout | Mobile layout | Small font | Medium font | Large font | Translate |

 

You can buy books here

More Kindle books:

And the big
paperback book


Look inside

 

Please help and share:

 

Quick links

Disciplines

* Argument
* Brand management
* Change Management
* Coaching
* Communication
* Counseling
* Game Design
* Human Resources
* Job-finding
* Leadership
* Marketing
* Politics
* Propaganda
* Rhetoric
* Negotiation
* Psychoanalysis
* Sales
* Sociology
* Storytelling
* Teaching
* Warfare
* Workplace design

Techniques

* Assertiveness
* Body language
* Change techniques
* Closing techniques
* Conversation
* Confidence tricks
* Conversion
* Creative techniques
* General techniques
* Happiness
* Hypnotism
* Interrogation
* Language
* Listening
* Negotiation tactics
* Objection handling
* Propaganda
* Problem-solving
* Public speaking
* Questioning
* Using repetition
* Resisting persuasion
* Self-development
* Sequential requests
* Storytelling
* Stress Management
* Tipping
* Using humor
* Willpower

Principles

* Principles

Explanations

* Behaviors
* Beliefs
* Brain stuff
* Conditioning
* Coping Mechanisms
* Critical Theory
* Culture
* Decisions
* Emotions
* Evolution
* Gender
* Games
* Groups
* Habit
* Identity
* Learning
* Meaning
* Memory
* Motivation
* Models
* Needs
* Personality
* Power
* Preferences
* Research
* Relationships
* SIFT Model
* Social Research
* Stress
* Trust
* Values

Theories

* Alphabetic list
* Theory types

And

About
Guest Articles
Blog!
Books
Changes
Contact
Guestbook
Quotes
Students
Webmasters

 

| Home | Top | Menu | Quick Links |

© Changing Works 2002-
Massive Content — Maximum Speed

Site Menu

| Home | Top | Quick Links | Settings |

Main sections: | Disciplines | Techniques | Principles | Explanations | Theories |

Other sections: | Blog! | Quotes | Guest articles | Analysis | Books | Help |

More pages: | Contact | Caveat | About | Students | Webmasters | Awards | Guestbook | Feedback | Sitemap | Changes |

Settings: | Computer layout | Mobile layout | Small font | Medium font | Large font | Translate |

 

 

Please help and share:

 

Quick links

Disciplines

* Argument
* Brand management
* Change Management
* Coaching
* Communication
* Counseling
* Game Design
* Human Resources
* Job-finding
* Leadership
* Marketing
* Politics
* Propaganda
* Rhetoric
* Negotiation
* Psychoanalysis
* Sales
* Sociology
* Storytelling
* Teaching
* Warfare
* Workplace design

Techniques

* Assertiveness
* Body language
* Change techniques
* Closing techniques
* Conversation
* Confidence tricks
* Conversion
* Creative techniques
* General techniques
* Happiness
* Hypnotism
* Interrogation
* Language
* Listening
* Negotiation tactics
* Objection handling
* Propaganda
* Problem-solving
* Public speaking
* Questioning
* Using repetition
* Resisting persuasion
* Self-development
* Sequential requests
* Storytelling
* Stress Management
* Tipping
* Using humor
* Willpower

Principles

+ Principles

Explanations

* Behaviors
* Beliefs
* Brain stuff
* Conditioning
* Coping Mechanisms
* Critical Theory
* Culture
* Decisions
* Emotions
* Evolution
* Gender
* Games
* Groups
* Habit
* Identity
* Learning
* Meaning
* Memory
* Motivation
* Models
* Needs
* Personality
* Power
* Preferences
* Research
* Relationships
* SIFT Model
* Social Research
* Stress
* Trust
* Values

Theories

* Alphabetic list
* Theory types

And

About
Guest Articles
Blog!
Books
Changes
Contact
Guestbook
Quotes
Students
Webmasters

 

| Home | Top | Menu | Quick Links |

© Changing Works 2002-
Massive Content — Maximum Speed