When They Don’t Know They Are Dissatisfied

Your dream clients don’t move until they are dissatisfied.

When you find your dream client, they often don’t believe that they are dissatisfied or even that they should be. Sometimes you have to help your dream client become dissatisfied before you can create an opportunity to help them produce a better result.

Why Aren’t They Dissatisfied?

When you call to get in with your dream client, your contacts within the company tell you that they are completely, one hundred percent satisfied. Without dissatisfaction, it’s difficult to get in.

But much of the time, your dream clients don’t know that they are dissatisfied or that they should be. Your dream client is getting a result, and they may not have the broad experience to know that there is a gap between their performance and what it might be were you to help them do something better. They believe that they are satisfied.

Your dream client may say things like, “We just had our best production month ever,” or “We have never done as well as we are doing now.” Because they are measuring their results against their own past performance, their satisfaction with those results doesn’t necessarily mean that they are achieving the best possible results.

Your dream client doesn’t have your experience.

And you don’t have theirs.

Their experience may include salespeople promising a better result in the past, only to produce the same result they were getting before switching. Discouraged, over time your dream client may simply accept the status quo, believing that there isn’t any way to produce a better result. They quit trying and accept things as they are, even if they should be dissatisfied.

Starting Them Down the Buying Cycle

The buying cycle begins (and ends) with dissatisfaction. When no dissatisfaction exists, creating an opportunity means that you have to first create dissatisfaction (or at least potential dissatisfaction).

To move your dream clients who believe that they are satisfied to even better results, you first must help them to understand that they should be dissatisfied.

This starts with identifying and showing them where the gaps are. You do this by comparing and contrasting their present results with the results that would be possible should they decide to give you an opportunity.

Your dream clients, because of their experience, may be incredulous. Even though you don’t break the iron law of sales by prescribing before you diagnose, you do have to be prepared to present proof that you can—and do—help other people produce a better result. It’s best if you can prove that you have helped people in the same position that they are in presently.

You need concrete evidence that demonstrates what is possible. This proof means that there may be a gap, and that it may be worth exploring.

Your dream client may believe that their best month ever means they should be satisfied. But if you can demonstrably prove that their best month ever isn’t what it might be, then you can help create the dissatisfaction that opens opportunities to make their future months more than they ever imagined or hoped for.

Questions

Have you ever run across a dream client who believed they were completely satisfied until they learned that they had adjusted their expectations downwards and were accepting mediocrity?

How do you help your dream clients come to believe that a gap exists where they previously believed none existed?

How do you balance proving your have the abilities to help produce greater results without moving into prescribing before you have diagnosed?

How do you overcome the resistance to exploring an opportunity when your dream client believes they are producing good results without you?