Are You Solving the Right Problems for Your Customers?

Are you in B2B sales?

Give up already on that old playbook of simple pitches and cold calls. It simply doesn't work.

Today, the stakes are higher, and the demands are way tougher. Success relies on a strategic, personalized approach where understanding the real problems of your customer is essential.

To delve deeper into this aspect of sales, we've enlisted the insights of Suraj Sampath, IT Sales Director at MindSource, who brings a wealth of experience from his career at industry-leading companies like Smartcar and DocuSign.

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Step-by-Step Guide to Understanding Customer Problems

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1. Know Your Customer

It all starts with understanding the problems you solve. When building an ideal customer profile and a robust sales pipeline, the key lies in alignment.

Your solutions should not just meet the needs of any customer; they should meet the needs of the right customer.

Suraj explains that understanding your customer's business goals, risk factors, and strategic priorities is the backbone of the sales process.

"You really want to understand things around their business objectives, their risk factors, and their strategic priorities just because this is probably what's resonating with them the most, and this is what personally affects them."

This ensures that your efforts are spent engaging with prospects who will see the true value in what you offer.

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2. Prepare Yourself for Business Interactions

Mastering business interactions requires strategic preparation.

Suraj stresses the importance of understanding the landscape before entering a business dialogue. This means doing your homework and reviewing customers' public activities, their social media profiles, and even their previous podcast interviews.

The idea is to enhance your likelihood of successful engagement by being well-prepared with the right questions.

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3. Target the Right Customers

"There's no reason to try to go for everybody who more than likely won't buy. I'd rather say spend 80-90% of your time on the people who would."

Yes, focus on customers who will genuinely benefit from your solutions rather than casting a wide net over an unresponsive audience.

This involves analyzing past customer data to understand which profiles have shown real growth potential, enabling more focused and resource-efficient strategies.

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4. Speak Their Language

Engaging effectively with different departments means speaking their language.

Whether it's sales, marketing, or IT, knowing their main concerns and the specific problems your product solves for them can make all the difference.

It's about focusing on key business metrics that matter to them, which Suraj believes will increase the urgency and engagement in your pitches.

Additionally, leveraging successful customer stories can greatly enhance your credibility and help potential clients visualize the real benefits of your offering.

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Ultimately, the goal of your interactions and offerings is to help customers achieve more with their resources, be it making more money, saving time, decreasing risk, or improving their overall customer experience.

Suraj sums it up well: "What you're really doing with those outcomes is you're helping people make more money, you're helping them save time, you're helping them decrease risk, or you're helping them improve their overall customer experience."