How To Create Impactful Transitions

I am often asked how to make impactful transitions between the opening of customer meetings and the value you want to create. Transitions are essential, as you probably all experience daily at customer meetings. It’s that moment when the meeting starts to get interesting for the customer. How do you create the best transitions?

Prepare with the end in mind.

You need to prepare for your meeting with the end in mind. This means, as a Trusted Advisor following the Selling with the Buyer’s Perspective approach, how do you think you can help grow the customer’s business? Based on that decision, decide what value you want to create during the meeting. For example, if the customer is in Why Change? of their buying process, you will focus on 3rd party research to change their perspective. On the other hand, once the customer is in Change to What? you will create value by focusing on what solution criteria need to be in place to make your business idea work, and you would like to share success stories of other similar customers you have helped.

What do you want the customer to discover?

A crucial part of your preparation is deciding what you want your stakeholders to discover. To reach these conclusions, start with obtaining Situational knowledge. Ideally, you will get AI to help you:

• What can you learn about their company?
• What can you learn about their industry?
• What can you learn about the stakeholders you are about to meet?

Imagine that you are about to meet with a prospect. These customers are automatically in a Service in Place state. They do not use you as a supplier but instead your competitor. How would a Why Change? conversation go, and how do you transition to your business idea?

Show – Verify

After a short, polite chit-chat, to control the meeting, you want to show the contact person that you have done your homework. You are well prepared; you understand their business model and how they make money. You have a good idea of who their customers are and what business challenges they face.

Customers do not like to answer a laundry list of questions from salespeople but like a conversation about what interests them. Hence, the better you are prepared and show what you know, the more likely your stakeholders will engage.

It is important to keep this as a conversation and be aware that your customers always know more about themselves. So, after your ‘show,’ make sure you ‘verify’ with your stakeholders that you understood their situation and challenges well enough.

The ‘Ask’ Transition

At this stage, you have not shared anything, neither your business idea nor the insights to change their perspective. You need a smooth transition, a shift that keeps the conversation interesting and requires the customer to really get involved in the business idea you are about to share. For this, you need to have prepared a strategic question you can ask when you feel the moment is right.

For example, in a Why Change? conversation where you would like the stakeholder to discover that you can help them get more clicks on their website, shop at greater basket values, and convert more orders, you can ask: “What does your B2C strategy look like to grow your eCommerce business?” This open question will get the customer to convey what that is, which is your transition to sharing third-party research on that topic.

When the stakeholder is in Change to What? you can ask, “What solutions need to be in place to improve your customer’s web shopping experience?” Again, this is your transition to sharing customer success stories.

Be Strategic

Your ASK TRANSITION question must be an open question to reveal the customer’s current strategy. This transition is so impactful because whatever the customer shares with you is the current benchmark what works for them; What they have thought that would work as a strategy. As a Trusted Advisor, you offer help and share insights that will change their perspective.  Explain how to use these insights to overcome their challenge and drive better results. You will be perceived as trustworthy because you have helped other customers with that before. Do you see now what a great, impactful transition can do?