Not Every Client Has a Unique Problem

The legacy approach most salespeople still use focuses on asking prospective clients about their problems. Some believe each client has a unique problem, something completely different from other clients, so they use a lot of time trying to elicit every sordid detail. This is why decision-makers don't find a great deal of value in this approach.

Why would you call a prospective client and ask for a meeting if you didn't already keenly understand their problems and what is likely creating a drag on their results?

Imagine a company with hundreds of clients that all had a unique problem. Their “solution” would be a modern-day miracle, not to mention a complete illusion. In reality, you can only solve a few targeted problems you already know about—especially if you’ve been selling for any reasonable amount of time. Why start with a question when you already know the answer?

The Small Number of Unique Problems You Solve

Recently, a salesperson attempted to pitch me by asking me to name the biggest challenge in my business. I gave him an honest answer, knowing it wasn't something he could improve. What he was trying to sell solved a very narrow set of problems, so he quickly came to the end of his sales script.

You already know which problems you solve for your clients. Those problems are known to both you and your clients, as you have helped dozens or hundreds of clients improve their results. As a result, you already know what causes your prospective clients to struggle to produce better outcomes, as well as what they might need to change to improve their results.

An ideal client profile must specify the better results they are certain to need or want to improve. Improving those results may include buying your product, but it might also require the prospective client to change how they operate. If you believe you should call on clients that fit your profile, you're admitting your prospective clients share a finite number of challenges you might help them address.

The Unique Improvements You Make

Because your clients have a few problems you might solve, you have an equally small number of outcomes you can help your clients improve. The salesperson who asked me about my biggest problem would have been better off asking me a question about a result he could improve with what he sells. He might have said, “Are you able to take on new clients right now?"

Because what you sell improves a few outcomes, you can start with a well-formed theory about the challenges and obstacles that cause your prospective clients to produce suboptimal results. That theory allows you to adopt a different and more modern approach to selling, by explaining why companies like your client are struggling to produce the better results they need, helping the client recognize what's changed in their world, and discussing what they need to do to improve their results. You can skip “what’s keeping you up at night” for the same reason a Linear Algebra professor doesn’t teach the multiplication tables: everyone he teaches already knows them.

This specialized focus also means you can spend your time with the companies and contacts that find the better results compelling enough to meet with you and to explore how they can improve them. The current spray and pray approach to B2B sales is doomed to fail, as history repeats itself.

How Your Client is Unique

A good number of things make your client unique, but that list isn't likely to include their problem or the outcomes they wish were better. Your client might need a different buyer's journey. They might need you to modify what you do to make it work for them. They might also need to make changes inside their company to improve their results or adjust to unique circumstances.

You can provide the help your prospective client needs without believing every client has a unique problem or that they need a better outcome unknown to you. Every business helps deliver a certain outcome, but not every possible outcome. They choose who they want to serve, how they want to serve them, and the results they want to deliver. They avoid spending time pursuing people who don't care about the outcomes they deliver.

Focusing Your Outcomes

I don't know how many outcomes you can help your clients improve, but it isn't very many—I doubt you’d run out of fingers counting them. You can confidently call on your prospective clients knowing they care about the three or four outcomes you can help them improve.

The more you recognize the few different problems your clients have and how each one impacts their results, the easier it is to adopt a modern sales approach, one that can create a paradigm shift that helps your client recognize the need to change. Let your competitors waste your client’s time by asking them the same questions about their problems—you’ll keep busy actually fixing them.

Let us be honest about the legacy approach to B2B sales: the only reason salespeople ask about a problem is to set up a case for their solution. This is not a consultative approach, as the primary advice is "buy my solution from me and my company." In fact, it’s anti-consultative. To be truly consultative, you would offer advice and counsel that’s still sound and smart, even if your client never spends a dime with you.