When we meet someone with a problem we can solve, we tend to think it’s a match made in heaven.
We’re enthused at finding someone with a problem we know all about… and we assume that merely having the answer is all they need to know about us to move forward… so we move straight to the solution.
What often happens next, is our prospect asks us a bunch of questions about our solution, which puts us into free consulting mode.
And after trying to answer their questions convincingly, the meeting usually ends with them saying, “I need to think about it, Iet me get back to you”, the meeting ends, and they go radio silent on you.
This is a trap that most advisors fall into, which makes them default to selling their expertise and then having to chase “ghosts”.
The key to avoiding this trap is to replace talking about your solution, with talking about a roadmap.
The roadmap is a concept I created years ago with one of my private advisor clients.
I once worked with a consultant who did customer onboarding experiences for big companies, but ironically her own onboarding experience was not getting many of these companies to onboard with her.
So I asked, “Do you show them a pre-sale process of some sort to help them understand why they need you”.
She said, ‘Yes, I’ve got a diagram that I show them for how we deliver our services”.
She then explained it to me in detail, it was so complex and full of industry jargon, my eyes soon glazed over and I completely tuned out.
Then it dawned on me, this was exactly how her prospects were reacting and why she was losing perfectly qualified prospects in her sales process.
Looking at her diagram, and hearing her talk about it, would’ve triggered the same internal thoughts in them that it did in me, which were: “There’s too much to digest, I can’t make a decision right now.”
But rather than telling her out loud, it was simply easier for them to say: “I need to think about it”, then go shop someplace else.
Her process diagram laid out her solution in all its complexity, but the purpose of the roadmap I’m talking about here, is to simplify the prospect’s problem, and show them a clear path to getting it solved.
It maps out the process of solving the problem, not the details of the solution itself.
For a sales roadmap to be effective, it must be simple, because simplicity engenders certainty and trust.
You don’t want it to be complex (or contain financial jargon), because then you have to spend time educating your prospect, and then they have to think about it… which is where the whole thing breaks down.
So, the big idea here is to stop selling your solution. Sell the process that your prospect will go through, visually, to get their problem solved.
When they see it, they believe it – when they hear it, they need to think about it.
When they see the process mapped out and presented with certainty, in clear and simple terms, it alleviates their resistance and naturally brings them around to the only remaining question… whether to engage with you or not.
There’s no more educating, no more having to think about it, no more selling yourself, and no more chasing.