Can you remember a time when you saw a heavily pregnant woman walking down the street? We sometimes show a powerpoint image of a pregnant woman to really give a sense of something that is totally compelling it certainly gets people focused, taking action and buying things. In an earlier post we gave an overview of compelling selling and one of the parts of the model is the idea of compelling reasons - why you prospect is going to buy and why now. So for the next part in this series let's explore compelling reasons further - what kinds of things compel a sale?
We split compelling reasons into five areas. The first area we term compulsory and it covers all the kinds of things that fall into the legal and regulatory fields. So think of year 2000 for a massive example of this. 2012 olympics will be big for the UK. Other reasons that would fall in here would be law changes and also think of compulsory but non governmental change - Microsoft putting XP at end of life will drive significant change.
The second area is resources. Here it is easiest to think in broad terms using ideas like
space - think data centerstime - think windows of time, deadlines, time to market
information - think CRM
people - think too few or the wrong kind of staff
energy - think green, cost per watt or running out of oil
It is usually a lack of resources that drives a sale. Too many resources is generally something that is exposed in a secondary way by our third compelling area which is financial. The real compelling reason for addressing too many people is usually cost reduction. So cost would be an current example here but also think cash flow in these recessionary times and obviously revenue is always key. Think also of the cost of cash and balance sheet issues too. It's easy to always think in financial terms but remember we are looking for compelling reasons. So the financial drivers must have a deadline and commitment such as statements to shareholders to make them compelling not just nice to haves.
There are two more areas that we also use which are personal and external reasons. These can both be powerful drivers in their own right and the more compelling reasons you can identify or generate with your prospect the better the chances the client will buy.
So what is your experience? do you have some more examples or think we've got wrong? either way we'd love to get your comments.
