Customer-Centric Sales Process | Dan Smith, CAO of Winning By Design

Now, the next thing that they go through is if you're ever trying to figure out how to solve a problem, what is the first step that you take? I'm gonna come to you in a sec. I love the enthusiasm. Let's go back over here. What's the first thing that you do when you wanna solve a problem and you don't know how to get started?

Google it.

What do you Google?

How to something.

It's always a how-to, and I want you to think about this as the next phase your customers go through. They're gonna educate themselves in this how-to mentality. How do I blank? So when you're thinking about ways to create case studies or create information or build your website to deliver value, make sure it helps them realize how do I blank. It has nothing to do with your features and benefits. What is the next step that your customers will go through? The next experience? Say it again. Try the solution. Okay, we have a trial. Absolutely. So they have to be aware of some problem that they have. They have to start educating, right? It's like, how do I blank? I accidentally backed up my wife's car and I Hit off the side mirror a couple weeks ago because I was distracted on the phone. Don't drive on the phone, it's not a good idea. Had to figure out how do I change the side mirror. Now if I took it to the store, it'd be hundreds of dollars. Based on Amazon how-to videos, $60 fix. Takes a little time, it's kind of fun to figure it out. So I go and find on YouTube how do I. Now ultimately the last step that we have in the sales process before we drive commitment This is something called selection. This is where you are narrowing it down into a couple competitors that you could choose between. This is how your customers are thinking through it. As you may notice, these stages that I'm putting up here are customer-centric. They are not sales-centric. It's not lead turned into opportunity turned into closed won. It is the experiences your customers go through. That is the modern way about thinking about sales. How do I optimize for the customer experience? Now, I mentioned that this is where we drive commitment. This is where the customer first signs off on something. Why do you think I have it expand on the left side?

Yes? Because you want to make sure that you're getting the right thing.

Okay, I want to go a little bit deeper. Potentially, I like it. It's easier to let it pass instead of signing from it or keep going with it, but I want to build on this idea of lifetime value because that's exactly what I want to go through.

Both of these are still for you.

Over here is the money. Leads, commitment, money. But the reason we have it expand here is that sometimes we can get referrals. We can have our customers sell for us. They can be our number one advocates. There's something else called upsell or cross-sell, other ways to try and drive more revenue. If I win one small part of a business, how can I get into all of the different departments? If I'm selling B2C, how do I get them to expand to their friend group? So this type of expansion also has 3 stages. Has anybody bought something expensive recently? A car, a wedding ring? What'd you buy? A bag.

A bag?

Okay, I want something even more expensive. I want something that like it would have hurt if it didn't work. Now hiking bag, I know how expensive those can be. Does anybody have something more expensive than a hiking bag? Of course it's relative. Absolutely right. Bought a laptop. Okay. Laptops are also borderline there. That also can be very expensive. Anything more than a laptop? iPhone tuition for this place. Anything else?

Okay.

Let's go through. Who bought a car? You bought a car.

Within range.

Okay, within range. So the reason I wanna go through this example is most of the time these experiences are better optimized when it's something that's really expensive. If we can think about the idea of buying a car, I wanna use these experiences to make it more realistic, and then you back it in to the solution that you're selling to see how this fits with them. So what are we aware of when we buy a car? Why are we buying a car?

Need for transportation.

Need for transportation, need to get to school, need to get to work. Maybe I live so far the train system doesn't go where I live. That's the problem I need solving. Now if I haven't bought a car in a while, go online before I talk to a salesperson. The theory is, is that I don't want to get tricked into buying something that is way too expensive than what I actually need. I want to come with With some insight now. This is the complete mindset shift. Salespeople used to be the shepherd of information, but nowadays, if we can find it online, if I can go to Yelp and see a review before going to a restaurant, I will do that every single time before just trusting the person at the restaurant. Do you sell good food here? So if I'm going through the car analogy, I figure out a couple different cars that I want, but we always make decisions as humans in a very specific way. Who in the audience, by show of hands, makes a rational decision? Who here makes an emotional decision first and then justify rationally? It's a leading question, but that's all of us. When it comes to a car, we see a car. There's some beautiful cars out there. Now, of course, we can't buy the most expensive car that we may want, but we still visualize ourselves in the kind of car that fits within our range. We educate ourselves. What are the options that we have? And then when we get into selection mode, there's a couple different models, or we try and buy a used car that fits within our budget. So it really depends what's on the lot, but we already have a couple things narrowed down. Once we buy that car, once we commit to it, we sign our money away. It's a really expensive thing. It really hurts to commit to this. If I'm buying a laptop, it's expensive. When I give them my credit card, I'm really nervous. What is that feeling I have right now?

Attachment.

Attachment. Safety. But then what's the opposite side of that? You just maximally committed. Uncertainty. There's a specific phrase for it. Does anybody know? Buyer's remorse. This is an extremely emotional part of the journey. Now, the reason I bring it up Is that what is the worst thing that can happen in our recurring revenue business that can distract us from maximizing our revenue? Begins with C. Does anybody remember that word? Recurring revenue builds on it year over year over year. What's the worst thing a customer can do?

Cancel.

Cancel, churn. Churn is something that we need to try and minimize as recurring revenue business. And so this is why I bring up that experience of buyer's remorse. The seeds of churn are planted in the first 30 days. If you buy something, you're maximally exposed, you're really nervous, you're like, oh, you know what, this laptop requires me to have a dongle now and I have to get all these things and I always lose the power cord, I can get very frustrated. Or this thing that I bought used, it petered out after 1 week. I'm very frustrated. Now if you think about this from a recurring revenue business, if they get frustrated at the beginning and then they get a call 30 days before renewal 12 months later, they're gonna be like, this has never worked for me. So what I want you to think about, this first experience, this ends in something called first value. Can anybody think of what a first value is of buying a car?

You can park in your car space.

New car smell. I love that one. What else could it be? Convenience. Potentially miles. Privacy. How do you mean privacy? I love it. That's absolutely right. It's the first time you sit in there and you realize like I can put my bag down here and it's my bag. I get to put it right here. For a lot of people, it's when you first turn on the engine and you hear that bad boy purr. You're not using it to solve the problem you bought it for, which is driving to school, driving to work. You just have this feeling that this is going to be awesome. I can put my bag in the trunk. This is now mine. Privacy, safe space, new car smell. Say it again. Absolutely. So then there's other issues. Now for you, that's gonna be really valuable. It's not the same for everybody. And what I love that you're bringing up right now is what you find valuable, what you're trying to solve for here. This is important to you. So if I was selling you a car, I would focus on that. I wouldn't focus on the air conditioning, the gas mileage, all of the other things that typically other people might care about. All I need to focus on is what you care about. What are you prioritizing? All the other stuff is there, but it means something different to different people. So to jam through this real quick, the next phase that we call this is onboarding. Then they're gonna be using your product, your solution for 12 months. And the final part is growth, referrals, renewals, upsell, cross-sell, et cetera.