Remember Y2K when it was so easy to sell anything that could be covered by a Y2K budget – the London 2012 Olympics will provide a similar sales scenario. The idea of compelling events has been around a long time and in our view is a key part of qualification. We have extended the notion of compelling events to compelling selling that sees a sale as the successful completion of a logical and emotional journey for you and your client.
There’s a sense of inevitability when you think of something like London 2012 and in our experience that sense of inevitability is also present in you and your solution when a sale goes really well. So rather than just recognising it when it happens how do you create it?
For us there are three components that are the key and they are illustrated in the diagram below.
Compelling Reasons are derived from compelling events and fall under five categories that we will explore further in an upcoming entry. Compelling reasons are usually uncovered during your client qualification but sometimes you can create them. Compelling Solution and Compelling Supplier are what you generate logically and emotionally for your client.
We find it useful to split out Compelling Supplier from Compelling Solution. Combine them and you have the Unique Sales Proposition (USP) that is commonly discussed. Splitting them allows you to focus first on a Compelling Solution that exactly meets your client’s logical and emotional needs. Obviously that means clearly qualifying what is important and what is not for your client. Without that match you can be the most wonderful supplier with great relationships but you won’t get that inevitable feeling about making the sale.
Once you have a Compelling Solution you also want to be the Compelling Supplier for your client. Again there are emotional as well as logical angles to consider and getting this right also relies on good qualification. We will look into this in more detail in the next article on Compelling Selling.
So when you discover a client who has compelling reasons to buy such as meeting that 2012 Olympics deadline make sure that you build the compelling sale.
