Adopting the customer’s point of view

By Andrea Hill

The famous Woody Allen quote, “Eighty percent of success is just showing up,” always bothered me. It seems so unimaginative, so ultimately pessimistic. I’d like to think that 80 percent of success stems from creativity, passion, and curiosity, not merely being there.

But what if Allen really meant that 80 percent of people simply show up? What if his true message is that mediocrity often rules the day, and that the successful few must be plucked from among the mediocre many?

That’s fairly pessimistic too, but lately I’ve had reason to think that many people just show up and expect to cultivate business—and success—simply because they are present. Do you? Answer these four questions:

• Which of your competitors has the closest product offering to yours, both in price point and in product attributes? If you answered with confidence and accuracy, give yourself 10 points.

• What is the average turnaround time for a stock order among your top five competitors? Give yourself another 10 points if you have an answer. Throw on two additional points if you named five competitors.

• Which of your competitors would you wish to acquire for the specific reason that its product offering is a perfect complement to yours, with minimal overlap in products? Got that? Good for you. Have another 10 points.

• Where else might your customers choose to spend their money instead of on your products or those of your direct competitors? Give yourself 10 points if you know.

If you scored less than 10 points, you may just be showing up when it comes to relevant product knowledge. If you scored 20 to 30 points, you’re in the game, but you’re probably not winning. If you scored 40 to 42 points, you either are an award-winning salesperson or you will be very soon. The key is understanding your products from your customer’s perspective.

Knowing Your Product…

Customers don’t view your products in a vacuum and you mustn’t either. Your job as a salesperson is to make your product stand out from the rest of the competitive offerings—and you can’t do that without knowing who is in the field and what they have to offer, including price points, styles, and services.

Several weeks ago I was doing a staff observation at a retail jewelry store. A couple entered the store and the salesman asked if he could help, to which the woman replied that they were “just looking.” The man and woman seemed to have a difficult time navigating the store, which is designer-centric.

After several minutes, afraid the couple would leave the store in frustration, I piped up, “Perhaps if you could tell me what type of jewelry you’re looking for I could help you find it faster.” At that point they shared that they wanted to be the first to buy their daughter, who was graduating from college, a diamond ring. But that it had to be obvious that the ring was not wedding jewelry.

“Oh,” I replied, “so you’re looking for where we keep our right-hand rings.”

“Yes!” said the husband, with obvious relief.

I asked if the couple had been in a designer jewelry store before (they had not) and the salesman and I proceeded to extol the virtues of the store and its impressive lineup of designers, while taking the couple from line to line and showing the options for non-wedding diamond rings. After the couple departed (purchase in hand) the salesman asked me, “How did you guess they were looking for a specific type of jewelry? We were both watching them and I didn’t jump to the same conclusion. I just thought they didn’t see anything they liked.”

I asked the salesman if he had ever been inside the other two jewelry stores in the community, and he had not. “Both your local competitors are merchandised by jewelry type,” I told him. “Customers who have shopped at those stores first have been trained to shop for jewelry a certain way. Competitive awareness primed me to look for those clues, and gave us the perfect opportunity to present your differentiation.”

…Is Tougher Than You Think

Who can anticipate in advance the needs and desires that will turn up in the course of a customer interview? If you have a complete, nuanced understanding of what you are selling, you can respond to those needs and desires in a manner utterly gripping to the consumer because you are so relevant. This type of product knowledge is roughly half the product knowledge you require.

The other half of product knowledge is what your competitors are offering, what’s happening in the rest of the industry, and how consumer tastes are being influenced by popular media, fashion, and technology.

Be conscious that when you are selling, it’s never just you and your customer in the room. Every one of your competitors is behind you, jumping up and down, brandishing signs that tout their offering and vying for your customer’s attention. Your customer isn’t even trying to ignore those distractions. She is watching the activity behind you while listening to what you have to say, comparing everything. If you have done your homework, you will deftly fend off f competitive information without ever looking over your shoulder. You will read between the lines, clueing in to when a question has been motivated by competitive information. You’ll respond in ways that answer the unspoken concern while clarifying your differentiation and benefits.

In other words, you’ll have done more than merely show up. You will be selling from a place of passion, curiosity, and creativity—the very place from which the customer buys.