Insight Selling Archives - Insight Demand Ltd.

AI + Niche Marketing = More Leads

September 15, 2024January 10, 2024 by Michael Harris

Can AI transform the role of salespeople, making them more effective and valuable? McKinsey & Company’s June 2023 report, ‘The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier,’ identifies Sales & Marketing as one of the top four sectors comprising up to 75% of the value generative AI can offer.

But what is the most impactful AI use case for sales professionals to increase their earnings? This question was the driving force behind my capstone project for the “Transform your Business with ChatGPT” course at Quantic School of Business & Technology (see Capstone Project link below).

Selling Change Is Hard: Status Quo Bias Locks Customers In A Prison Of No Decision

January 10, 2024September 18, 2017 by Michael Harris

The value to buy your product is overwhelming and yet the customer decides not to buy. At times like these, it’s important to remember that customers are not rational decision making machines. They are human beings with built in cognitive biases that make them highly resistant to change. The status quo and optimism biases, for example, prevent customers from making the sensible decision to buy your product. To sell change, salespeople must not only climb a mountain of fear to get past the status quo bias, but they must also cross a valley of indifference to overcome the optimism bias. This is why selling change is so difficult.

Until salespeople improve at opening the gap with “WHY CHANGE,” they will struggle to close the gap with “WHY US.” Without a compelling reason to change, customers will stick with the status quo and “no decision” will continue to be your biggest competitor. To help customers buy, salespeople need Change Stories and Questions so that they can inspire customers to step into growth instead of back into safety.

Why Sales Fails at Selling Change With Success Stories & Needs Change Stories/Questions

November 3, 2017September 12, 2017 by Michael Harris

Success stories are only effective as proof late in the sales cycle once a customer has decided to change. Early stage customers, on the other hand, aren’t interested in stories about how you helped another customer reduce the time to create a report from one week to one day. At this stage, they don’t think they have a problem worth solving, so they aren’t looking for proof. That’s why you can’t close a sale with a success story unless you first open it with a “change story.” Without a compelling reason to change, customers will stick with the status quo and “no decision” will continue to be your biggest competitor.

From Sewer-line to Pipeline with Insight Selling

September 5, 2017September 5, 2017 by Michael Harris

Here’s a story about how a VP of Sales resurrects her pipeline by showing her team how to lead customers to value with insight not eyesight. As they achieve true sales wisdom, it’s like they’re using GPS while the competition is selling blind.

Instead of asking WHEN or HOW, Sarah intuitively kept asking WHY deals were expected to close. As the new VP of Sales for ERP Corp, the superficial answers she received from her salespeople confirmed that she had not inherited a healthy pipeline. In fact, it was a sewer-line full of zombie companies with no clear rationale for change.

The problem was that her salespeople were relying too heavily on the sales engineers to do their selling, and as a result, the initial meetings were too product-centric. Instead, Sarah wanted her salespeople to first help the customer to discover WHY they should buy, before involving the sales engineers to provide proof on HOW the product works. As Sarah’s mentor said: “Sales must open the gap before they can close it.”

Neuroscience Confirms We Buy on Emotion & Justify with Logic & yet We Sell to Mr. Rational & Ignore Mr. Intuitive

January 10, 2024March 31, 2017 by Michael Harris

Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman[i] says that 95% of our purchase decision making takes place subconsciously (aka System 1).[ii] Despite widespread agreement amongst neuroscientists that our conscious rational mind plays a minor role in decision making, why do our sales messages to buyers focus almost exclusively on facts and figures? Doesn’t all of this data flood customers with too much information, and result in paralysis for analysis? Why do we largely ignore the emotional subconscious, the real star of decision making? If we really want to reduce the number of sales opportunities lost to no decision, shouldn’t we also be directing our sales message to Mr. Intuitive, and not just Mr. Rational?

Sales Training Doesn’t Improve Bottom 80% So Invest In Best to Train Rest

January 10, 2024March 27, 2017 by Michael Harris

The goal of every sales training program is to improve the bottom 80% of salespeople, but that’s not what happens. What happens is that the top 20% get better, and the rest stay the same. Why? The top 20% can apply it in the field, and the rest can’t. So if you want to improve the bottom 80%, then you must share how your star performers are able to apply what they learned. You must use your best to train the rest through peer learning.

Salesman Podcast: How To Get Attention In Sales By Selling With Insights

March 22, 2017March 22, 2017 by Michael Harris

Click Video Below For Podcast

Share How Your Company’s Star Performers Articulate Value

November 23, 2016September 2, 2016 by Michael Harris

It’s now possible for your salespeople to articulate value like your star performers in less than three months through online video peer learning.

Get Off the Sales Training Merry-Go-Round and Increase Revenue

January 10, 2024August 19, 2016 by Michael Harris

It’s easier to believe a new sales methodology will be the magic bullet instead of doing the heavy lifting of follow-up training and coaching. But without follow-up, how will salespeople achieve sales mastery? How will they be able to articulate value in the heat of a sales call?

How To Deliver Insight & Challenge The Status Quo With Questions

January 10, 2024July 12, 2016 by Michael Harris

In the 2012 Harvard Business Review article titled “The End of Solution Selling,” the Challenger Sale positioned itself as the dominant sales methodology by creating a false dichotomy:

Ask information-rich customers generic questions, or
Challenge them with insight.

But what if salespeople asked better questions than “What keeps you up at night?” Could questions rise from the ashes like a phoenix if salespeople traded generic questions for ones that are insight-directed?

Insight Selling Map: The Answers Behind The Questions Illuminates The Road To Value

July 20, 2016July 7, 2016 by Michael Harris

It’s counter intuitive that a list of discovery questions will not help your salespeople lead customers to value until they first know the answers. Without the answers to illuminate the road to value, your salespeople will get lost in a sea of questions, because each customer is unique.

Imagine you’re directing someone to a destination: They’ve misinterpreted your directions, and they are now lost. How are you going to get them back on course when all you have are written directions?

How Can I Deliver Insight To An Executive With 25 Years Of Experience?

January 10, 2024April 7, 2016 by Michael Harris

Today, most sales and marketing executives would agree that they should deliver insight to customers. But they question how can they deliver insight to an executive with decades of experience? The problem is that they’ve usually set the bar too high for themselves. To deliver insight, they believe they must teach the customer something new about how to run their business. No wonder they can’t do it! Instead of trying to out-think a c-level executive, it’s easier to find insights within the customer’s blind spots; namely, the optimism and status quo biases. Once salespeople discover how fertile blind spots are for uncovering insights, they will finally be able to find and deliver insights.

How Video Role Play Can Help Salespeople Articulate Value

January 10, 2024April 6, 2016 by Michael Harris

When sales messaging is delivered through a video role play platform, salespeople will no longer look at it once and forget it in the heat of a sales call. If they are required to video record themselves delivering the sales message, they will get the practice they need to internalize it, especially when they practice six times before hitting send. But while the video role play delivery platform will ensure that salespeople can deliver the sales message, it cannot ensure that the message will increase sales.

Neuroscience Proves We Buy On Emotion & Justify With Logic & Why Deals Get Stuck In No Decision

January 10, 2024June 18, 2015 by Michael Harris

The expression that “People buy on emotion and justify with logic” has always made intuitively sense to me, but rationally it seemed like BS.

You could say “so what, who cares.” But did you know that 95% of our purchase decisions, according to Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman, take place unconsciously? And yet, when we seek to persuade c-level executives, we sell almost exclusively to Mr. Rational, and wonder why deals get stuck in paralysis for analysis and end in no decision.

The Godfather of Insight Selling – An Interview with Geoffrey Moore

January 26, 2016March 31, 2015 by Michael Harris

Everyone in technology knows of Geoffrey Moore as the author of “Crossing the Chasm.” His book has sold over 1 million copies, and crossing the chasm has become a metaphor that is universally used by companies with complex products to explain why they struggle to sell to the mainstream market. But not everyone knows that he is also the godfather of Insight Selling. In March 2009, for example, the HBR published his article “In a downturn, provoke your customer.” In this article, Moore explained why salespeople must provoke their customers with insight if they expect to have their products funded in a slow economy. I sat down with Moore to talk about the inside secrets for Insight Selling:

Geoffrey Moore on Crossing the Chasm with Narrative Based Selling

January 26, 2016March 10, 2015 by Michael Harris

If you work in technology, you know Geoffrey Moore is the famous author of “Crossing the Chasm.” This book has sold over 1 million copies, and crossing the chasm has become a metaphor that is universally used by companies with complex products to explain why they struggle to sell to the mainstream market. But you may not know that he also has a PhD in English literature, and this may explain why he is a proponent of narrative based selling.

Q1: Our first question for our guest is does he believe storytelling could help customers cross the chasm? “I am a huge believer in narrative. And if you think about it, particularly before the chasm, it’s 90% narrative.”

Why Success Stories Fail At Selling Change & Insight Scenarios Win

June 17, 2016December 17, 2014 by Michael Harris

Success stories are effective to use as proof and reinforcement late in the buying cycle once a customer has already formed a complete buying vision that fully recognizes “why change?” and “why you?”

These stories are easy to tell because you’re providing proof to a customer who has already recognized that he or she has a problem that your solution can solve. Success stories are effective because they gloss over the problem so that they can focus on the solution as proof.

The problem is that the vast majority of customers at any stage of the sales cycle are not yet sold on why they should change or why they should change through you.

Insight StorySelling- Lowest Risk & Best Way To Deliver Insight

March 8, 2016October 27, 2014 by Michael Harris

Imagine if your salespeople could shine a light of insight on today’s empowered customers so that they no longer underestimate the cost of the status quo and the benefits of change.

Your salespeople would no longer have to chase these empowered buyers down the road of commoditization and discounting, because they would know how to sell value and differentiate your product.

As your customers discovered the unique value of your product on their own terms, your company would achieve higher win rates, shorter sales cycles, and higher margins.

Six reasons why Insight StorySelling trumps Verbal Persuasion

March 8, 2016September 24, 2014 by Michael Harris

1- Puts the customer’s ego to sleep

With an insight scenario, you can deliver insights that will only challenge the customer’s thinking, and not the customer. Because insight scenarios are about someone else, the customer does not feel under attack. A story simply presents a scenario that allows the customer to draw their own conclusions. Without feeling pressured, the customer can now relax and listen to your message, and possibly gain enough insight that they start to tell themselves a new story, where new choices make more sense.

Why buyers push-back on insight selling & what you can do about it.

January 26, 2016September 9, 2014 by Michael Harris

Even though insight is what buyers need, it may not be what they initially want. By the time buyers engage with a salesperson, they may already have an idea of their needs, the solution they believe they want, and what they are willing to pay. So how does the seller use insight to challenge the customer’s thinking without challenging the customer?

It’s amazing that 10-20% of salespeople can actually sell value

January 26, 2016September 9, 2014 by Michael Harris

While many companies complain that 80-90% of their salespeople can’t sell value, they are spraying their sales force with product presentations, and praying that their salespeople will be able to figure out why customers should buy their product. But instead of complaining, these companies should feel blessed that they can increase sales by capturing and sharing this valuable tribal knowledge with the rest of their sales force.

Gartner study- buyers rate sales conversations dead last, but there’s hope- share customer stories

February 23, 2016September 9, 2014 by Michael Harris

Imagine running a sales team where the last person that your customers want to speak with is one of your salespeople? That’s the conclusion of a recent Gartner survey where Salespeople came in last place after technical and industrial experts, services and support, and senior executives as “the most influential personal interactions across the entire buying cycle.” (click)

So what’s the problem?

InsightSelling through StorySelling

March 7, 2016May 12, 2014 by Michael Harris

True story. Before a meeting, a potential customer downloads, and then watches 11-videos on SAP’s CRM. So by the time the meeting rolls around, the last thing the potential customer wanted was more information, because they’re drowning in it. All they wanted from the salesperson was insight into three key areas.

So how do you sell value and differentiate your product to these empowered buyers?

How to sell complexity beyond the customer’s capacity to understand

January 26, 2016May 12, 2014 by Michael Harris

How can you persuade someone to buy your complex product when 90% of your presentation is forgotten within 72-hours[i]?

The short answer is you can’t. Unless you dramatically change how you engage with customers, they won’t understand why they should buy your complex product, because of the limitation of our short-term working memory.

Insight Selling- How to sell value & differentiate your product with Insight Scenarios.

January 26, 2016January 17, 2014 by Michael Harris

Buy on Amazon click or download Chapter One click

Book Description

Selling value to B2B buyers today can feel like trying to stop a freight train that’s hurtling towards the sales graveyard of commoditization and discounting.

Today, an empowered buyer has done research, has a clear idea of his or her firm’s needs, and how much the firm is willing to pay. This type of buyer does not want a salesperson to talk about features and deliver a series of open-ended questions that delivers no value. What this buyer wants is insight. So, how does a salesperson deliver insight so that it challenges the customer’s thinking without challenging the customer?