We have all heard about the two hemispheres of the brain. The left brain is the scientific hemisphere. It embraces logic, mathematics and objective thinking and generally stays inside the proverbial box. The right brain is the artistic hemisphere. It embraces emotion and subjective thinking and is more inclined to think outside the proverbial box.
Decades ago, the digital revolution first penetrated businesses where the left-brainers worked, such as accounting and finance. In those early days, the role of the “CIO” typically reported to the CFO rather than the CEO. Today, the enterprise software footprint is still growing among left brain professions. But it is growing much faster among right brain professions. The growth of “big data” and “social media” has empowered entrepreneurs to create an entire new generation of solutions targeting the final frontier of right-brained professionals, particularly those in the marketing department.
The result is that many sales and marketing professionals in the enterprise software space are now pitching to a different kind of buyer in a different kind of buying organization. Sales and marketing professionals who have been schooled for years in navigating complex sales cycles among left brain buyers from cold call to closure may find themselves completely befuddled by the browsing, evaluating and buying behaviors they encounter among right brain buyers and among marketing departments in particular.
While many factors are altering what constitutes an effective sales process for enterprise software, this “right brain” shift is perhaps the most significant because so many of the most established modern sales practices (such as “SPIN Selling”) are no longer effective and can even backfire, particularly among senior marketing executives. Here are some of the key differences I have observed.
They want to know about features, not benefits. Among many sales professionals, this statement constitutes the ultimate heresy. For decades, software sales executives needed to lead with benefits because the typical buyer could not be counted upon to infer the benefits when presented with features. But today’s non-technical buyers are much more technically savvy. They also have enough business sense to know your features will come with benefits and a very nice ROI as well, most if not all of which they are capable of deducing on their own. Instead of being told the benefit, they want to come to the conclusion themselves as a result of knowing the features. Conversely, nothing is more annoying to a right-brainer than being presented with a bunch of benefits without an explanation of how your customers derive such benefits. As such, right brain buyers first want to know about the features of your solution. Their biggest concern is not the price of your product or the ROI of your product, but how much disruption your product will cause integrating it with everything else that goes on in their business lives. And they can only estimate that potential disruption once they understand the finer details of your product, the features.
Your competition solves a completely different problem. At the time of this writing, there are more new software solutions than ever before. Perfect or near perfect competition like what exists between conventional ERP systems does not exist between these new solutions. Instead, your potential customer views each solution as a portfolio of small value-adds that in aggregate deliver significant value. When a potential customer is looking at your solution as well as others, your biggest competitor for those same budget dollars may have a radically different solution than yours. Classic competitive strategies that try to flank or take on the competition head-on do not work in these situations. Instead, the winner will normally be the one who delivers the best combination of relieving pain with an easy, non-disruptive implementation.
They merely tolerate your math. The days of the well-presented business case are drawing to a close. But if you get to the point in the sales process where you can summarize your findings to a potential customer with beautiful charts, graphs and tables, a conventional closing presentation is not what is required. Instead it is time for you to do a lot of listening. Your presentation should be highly interactive. It might even make more sense for you to refrain from giving them your numbers during the presentation. Instead, leverage what you learn from that meeting to put their method of analysis into a spreadsheet you can deliver to them shortly after your interactive presentation. The goal is to get them speaking positively among themselves about your solution in their internal language. As such, talking at them—even with very rational and conservative numbers—can easily backfire.
They are in no hurry. Today, your biggest challenge is neither your biggest competitor nor the customer solving the problem internally. Instead the biggest challenge is the customer delaying their decision on your solution indefinitely. Your target customer can only handle so many projects each quarter. And projects started in a previous quarter will normally take precedence over new projects. While a potential customer is reviewing your solution in earnest, all the signals will indicate a near-term decision. Your potential customer has gotten very good at appearing very genuine to even the most street smart sales professionals. This will frustrate old school sales managers who demand accurate forecasts with few close dates slipping into subsequent quarters. And for the potential customer, nothing puts them in a stronger position than if you or your sales manager is desperate for a close. This common deceptive tactic delivers useful information and potentially delivers a steep discount. Hence, that is why it is common.
Right brain organizations are authoritarian. In a left brain organization, a recent graduate can be an expert in a very narrow field. But in right brain organizations there is too much subjectivity. Neo-expertise is uncommon, as well as unlikely to be recognized when it does exist. The result is that the decision to buy or not to buy is not only less objective but also less of a joint effort. The most senior person in the evaluation team is the decision-maker and if your champion is not that senior person, there is very little your champion can do for your cause other than to advise you on how to best win over the decision-maker.
Charm actually works. With so many great solutions available to right brain buyers, one should ask how they decide. Conventional ROI analysis does not work because there are simply too many unknowns for the right brain buyer. Will your solution double sales or have negligible impact? The right brain buyer is forced to operate on instinct. And that instinct is undergirded by emotional intelligence. Charm is not hollow flattery. Instead charm is warm and respectful treatment of an equal. Successful sales executives are smart but humble. They want the sale because of the value it will deliver to the customer, not the commission it will deliver to their pocket. Professional charm is willing to walk away. Counterfeit charm wants to manipulate. Master professional charm and more sales among right brainers will follow.
Many sales executives may have the intuition to recognize these right brain buying behaviors. But their sales managers and marketing organizations may still be applying the trade to successfully pitch a 2007 IT organization. For those who can adapt and not be dragged down by the antiquated thinking of others, the opportunity is perhaps larger than it has ever been.
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