Want to Sell? Want to Market? Good. Solve Problems.
Solving big problems means writing a bigger paycheck.
Many people get frustrated when things do not go their way.
There are many types of objections. Sales, marketing, promotion, you name it. I am certain you have been rejected umpteen times.
And… you are probably sick and tired of hearing the same rejections over and over.
I know how it feels. I know how you feel.
Just before you go woe is me on me, watch this video.
Watched it?
Good. Let’s continue.
Case Study: The Client with Millions of Problems
Such is the case with the prospect I have been pursuing for months. April (fake name) is the Project Manager in a large pharmaceutical company based in Singapore. She is responsible for the implementation and deployment of new software in Asia-Pacific.
April is perpetually busy, harried, frenzied and most importantly, worried about her budget paper. Nothing bothers her more than putting in the budget for the next quarter or calendar year. This is what she routinely says.
“Oh. My God. This is a disaster!”
I never fail to hear this line when we are close to a commercial discussion. Any slightest hint about an upcoming price discussion will trigger her budgetary fears. Forget price. I cannot even use the word value because it throws her into an innate escapist mode.
After 2 months, I finally realized one thing. April will never help me hit my revenue targets. Unless. I solve her problems first.
The Client’s Laundry List of Seemingly Impossible-to-Overcome Problems
I need to stay in touch with April at least once a week to put my fingers on her pulse. She works in a lean environment (meaning a lot of work and very few resources under her), so everyone in her team has a barrage of work to finish.
This is the laundry list of problems I scribbled from this morning’s call:
The budget paper for the next calendar year is still under compilation.
April needs the global security team to approve her application to onboard a new software.
The stakeholders in her organization are not convinced they need a new digital tool. She gets hammered by the classic response, why do we need this? April asks her boss if they should procure the software I am marketing and selling. Her boss asks her the same.
These were my immediate attempts to destroy her problems:
I told her that the window is still open to include new CAPEX investments into the papers, as it is not finalized. I got her to forward me the budget request paper. It turns out to be the use cases supporting the purchase of the product and the business value it brings. I managed to complete the paper within 15 minutes.
Next, I sent her the security compliance matrix for the company’s product published on the Cloud Security Alliance website meant for external consumption. April forwarded it to her security team immediately.
And many other solutions.
April smiled at the end of the call. She calls me the problem-solver. Of course, that was not my original intention.
It came to me that problem-solving is the best branding we have as a working professional. People want to talk to you. Clients want to know how we can solve their problems.
Our YouTube Channel – Knowledge Topics
On our Youtube Channel, we produce content to uncover topics that permeate all walks of life. Our community can understand what it means to be in the trenches of our interest.
Here are some topics of interest we recorded with high viewership:
Why we buy what we buy.
Marketing on a Dime.
Green Technology.
Robotic Era.
Mental Health.
Our goal is to share our research with our community from a practitioner's standpoint.
Summary
The ability to solve problems will get you what you want.
Woe is me is a waste of time. We are better off playing video games.
The job of Bottomsup Perspective is to research, discuss, and share our findings so our community can grow with us.
This topic is one example of sharing our practitionership.
Do you believe in what we do?
If you do, push this big purple button.
Aldric,
On Behalf of the Bottomsup Perspective Team