Your buyer doesn't always know what they need. This episode breaks down the difference between finding a need and driving one, including the "Shangri-La moment" when a buyer realizes a problem they couldn't name until you helped them see it.

Takeaways:

• The contemporary sales landscape necessitates a shift from merely discovering needs to actively driving them.
• Sales professionals must create clarity for buyers, enabling them to understand needs they may not have previously articulated.
• Effective consultative selling involves asking insightful questions that lead buyers to realizations about their unrecognized needs.
• Achieving the coveted 'Shangri La moment' in sales occurs when buyers acknowledge a need they were unaware of prior to the discussion.
• Preparation is essential for sales representatives, as it allows them to uncover hidden buyer needs with precision and insight.
• Sales representatives should focus on changing buyer perspectives during meetings, which leaves a lasting impact beyond mere proposals.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Coach Media
• Traveling Saleslady
• Brilliant Beam Media

This is road notes from the traveling sales lady.

Short reads for sales professionals on the move, Today's piece Driving a need versus Finding one Finding a need is table stakes.

The reps who win at the highest level today have moved past discovery into something more sophisticated.

They create the clarity that makes a buyer realize they had a need they couldn't name.

Classic consultative selling is built on a simple premise.

Understand the buyer's need, then connect your solution to it.

It's a sound framework, and it still works.

The challenge is that the world has changed in a way that quietly broke one of its core assumptions that buyers know what they need.

They often don't, not because they're unsophisticated, but because they're overwhelmed.

The problems worth solving are moving faster than the bandwidth available to identify them.

A buyer walking into a meeting hasn't always had time to fully articulate their challenge, let alone trace it to its root.

They know something isn't working.

They may not know what.

Sales coach Stephen Pia of Coach Media describes the next level of consultative selling as driving a need rather than just finding one.

Finding a need means surfacing something the buyer already knew was there.

Driving a need means asking questions so precisely that the buyer arrives at a realization they couldn't have reached alone.

The Shangri La moment in sales is when a buyer says, I didn't even think I had that need.

But based on what we just talked about, I guess I do.

That's when you've stopped finding needs and started driving them.

That moment isn't manufactured.

It's the result of a rep who is prepared enough to understand the buyer's context deeply.

Ask questions specific enough to surface what the buyer hasn't been able to name, and listen patiently enough to connect the dots in real time.

Three things for your 1.

What does your buyer probably not know they need yet?

That's the question that produces the Shangri La moment.

It requires preparation.

It's worth it.

2.

Are your discovery questions designed to confirm what you already think, or to surface what you don't know?

The rep who asks a question they don't know the answer to is doing something fundamentally different.

3.

When did you last leave a meeting having changed how a buyer thinks about their own situation?

That memory is more durable than any proposal.

Finding needs is a skill.

Driving them is a craft.

The first gets you in the conversation.

The second makes you the person the buyer calls when they're finally ready to move.

That's roadnotes from the traveling sales lady.

If you relate to this one, the full conversation that inspired it is waiting for you on the Traveling Saleslady podcast.

Find it wherever you listen.

See you on the road.

And Journey on Road Notes is a production of the Traveling Sales lady in partnership with Brilliant Beam Media.