You’re Wrong and I’m Right!

Last post I discussed giving simple answers to current and future customers and not trying to be the smartest person in the room. But what do you do when the customer is telling you something you believe is incorrect? Here are a few simple things you can do:

1.      Don’t come into the conversation ready to argue.

2.      Ask questions to make sure you understand the customer’s point of view.

3.      Listen to understand vs. listening to find ways to prove your point.

4.      Re-confirm their objective. If you forgot how to find out the customer’s objectives and what to do once you know them, here is my post from last month.

5.      Be empathetic in intention and tone.

Once you have done 1-5 above without trying to change their opinion, you probably have the information you need to re-frame how they’re looking at the situation.

1.      Start off by resetting the objectives.

2.      Offer an alternative solution to reach their objective.

3.      Explain in a respectful way why the solution you are proposing meets their objective.

4.      All of it needs to be about their WIFM (What’s In It For Me…which is what most people are thinking when you are proposing an idea to them)

Remember: you’re the expert. You’re the one consuming articles, books and other information about your industry so you can help them better understand it. You’re the one studying and using data from reputable sources so you can share your expertise with your customers, so they don’t have to know it all. You’re the one continuing to educate yourself with a plethora of success stories to use as data points so they can see why this isn’t just a gut belief by you to make the sale. But even with all of that, our customers are the ones that are thinking and learning about their business every day. The best solution is the one that combines our knowledge of our industry with our customer’s knowledge of their business/industry.  When you do that, in addition to have probably found the best solution you will have built a stronger relationship with your customer!