Unique Problems require Unique Solutions… Reaching the Right Eyes & Ears


By Steven K. Haught, MBA
Our discussion in the last two installments have anticipated that you will be talking with your primary contact at one of your clients or the first line executive at one of your prime prospects.   As I’ve said in the first tow installments on this concept of fear-based selling, a vendor using this approach must gain access to a higher-level executive than you traditionally deal with. 

Of course, it isn’t easy to arrive at a unique point of view that will strike the prospective client as original and helpful… something they fear could impact their business if not solved.

Generally speaking, vendors who have successfully met customer needs in the past already know more than they realize they do about the target organization. 

In the process of selling and supporting your solutions, you have interacted with other companies in the industry, and they naturally bring a different perspective to issues the client has viewed only from within. Moreover, they aren’t caught up in the dynamics that often make it hard for a client’s own managers to challenge the status quo. This hesitancy to make waves becomes stronger in times of general economic turmoil, like now. 

When people in your prospects organization are too worried about their jobs to present anything original or thought-provoking, it is easier for you to come across as a much-needed breath of fresh air.  You are offering a solution that your contact will not be shy about presenting up the chain of command.

To begin a fear-based sale, you must do three things well: identify a problem that will resonate with a line executive in the target organization; develop a unique point of view about that problem (one that links, to what your company has to offer); and present that ‘issue of concern’ to a decision maker who can take the implied action. 

For any given prospect or customer, your sales and marketing team can generate a long list of industry wide and company-specific problems that could be better useful in illuminating or amplifying your own research. The key is to find the one issue that matters so deeply that even in a downturn the money will be found to fund the project. Filter any issue you uncover to these three sets of questions:

• Would it meet the CEO’s “keeps me up at night” threshold? That is, does this problem seriously jeopardize the organization’s ability to compete?

• Is it being ignored, neglected, or ineffectively addressed by existing processes, systems, or services?

• Are you a credible source of advice on the issue? Is your organization’s track record better than your competitors’ when it comes to helping others in the customer’s industry solve related problems? Or, if your company is a start-up, do you have employees with prior experience solving the identified issue?

Having identified a high-impact issue, you need to develop an original point of view about it. Otherwise no senior executive will give you time. This may appear to depend on an unpredictable and unmanageable flash of brilliance on your part. 

It’s not that complicated. In fact it can be approached methodically. First, you need to survey other customers, your partners, and industry leaders to calibrate your view of the full magnitude of the ‘unique-fear-inspiring issue’ challenge the industry is facing. 

From this work you can then write a hypothesis that explains the issue and then develop a solution for presentation to your target prospect.  Your prospect will immediately recognize the issue, compare their situation to their peers’, and raise the level of urgency across their senior management teams.

Should every sales call and every presentation you make from now on be oriented to an identified ‘fear’ the client is experiencing? Probably not, but then again maybe that’s the very best way to serve your clientele and raise the reputation of your company.

Fear-based sales cycles, though much quicker than solution sales-cycles, are resource intensive, so only a few can be run in parallel; the method makes most sense when a significant business opportunity is at stake.  Right now, in the post-pandemic marketplace, this strategy will be very important if your organization wants to sell its products and services.
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