Every now and then you’ll encounter a prospect who has scar tissue concerning service providers who have let them down. When you’re stepping in to meet their needs, those concerns should be addressed.
The first step is to ask questions that will help you preemptively neutralize objections, starting with the following:
- “How many projects have you reviewed in the energy space during your career here at the firm?”
- “How many of those have been approved?”
- “What made it easy for them to be approved?”
- “What was the most gratifying project you've done (and why)?”
The point of asking these questions is to get the lay of the land. You will discover not only what has given them satisfaction, but also what has irritated them in the past and left them feeling vulnerable.
They might say, “Well, I really like this project because we were able to maintain control of operating cost and avoid headcount reductions.” Or they might say, “We did this one project in lighting. Boy, our pick and pack accuracy went way up. We had much less explaining to do to headquarters.” Maybe they’ll say, “We stopped putting things in wrong boxes because people could actually read the SKU codes.”
When you hear things like this it telegraphs what these prospects are looking for: accuracy, safety, quality, etc. You’ll learn similar things from their horror stories. This is part of your responsibility, to gain industry foreknowledge and know what other vendors are operating in your space, both good and bad. This is an important dimension of your competitive advantage.
