Challenge Your Customers: 10 Questions You Must

Be Asking

| Challenge Your Customers: Ten Questions You Must Be Asking

Without a doubt, you realize how tough it has become, over the last couple of years, to sell to your customers.

INTRODUCTION:๏. ๏.

{Ever Changing Market and Economic SlowdownWith limited budgets, mixed with the uncertainty and fear of the present economic scenario, asset acquisition proposals are being subjected to scrutiny like never before. And with the constantly shifting marketplace, coupled with fierce, hungry competitors, it is crucial that you build a culture that will continuously evolve your sales process to attain more productivity... how?

The importance of uncovering their Hurts, qualifying and amplifying, presenting appropriate solutions to those well-developed Hurts, has never been greater. {

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One way, for certain, is know where your customer is heading...by de-focusing

on your company Hurts and re-focusing on the

Hurts of your customers.

| Challenge Your Customers: Ten Questions You Must Be Asking

Understanding Ever-Changing Customer Challenges At this point, it is crucial that you develop the capability and credibility to influence your customer's decision.

INTRODUCTION:๏. ๏.

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In fact, via current internet technology, it has become easier to predict your customers’ Hurts, which will make you more predictive on what decisions your customers are ready to make. You can see real-time market trends and the hurts and needs of the customer...many times before the customer sees them.

That great and renowned amateur philosopher, Yogi Berra, noted, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future”- with today’s advanced data applications, we will make evermore predictions...highly reliable predictions. The end result is a high integrity and very productive relationship with your customer.

Following are ten questions you must ask your customers.

Ask Your Customer...๏. ๏.

| Challenge Your Customers: Ten Questions You Must Be Asking4

1. "Do you understand the specific challenges of your ever changing business needs?" Business strategies have markedly changed in the last few years and the market is fiercely competitive. It is important to know if your customer understands the market drivers and the solutions.

2. "In this company, who makes the final decision on these projects?" This will let you know if you have located the primary decision maker or if you will have to undertake the crucial task of depending on someone else to represent your plans and strategies to a mystery decision maker.

3. "In this still uncertain business terrain, are you more sensitive to the need for risk management and risk stratification?' Making the customer aware of the risks involved, especially from non-action, will give you the opportunity to engage with provocative messaging and have the customer realize your solutions can fix their Hurts.

4. "Do you understand core business acumen?" Check if your champions and stake holders understand the business mission, the major functional areas of the business, and know how to measure financial success.

5. "Is your business mission in resonance with the Hurts of your served market?" Assembling an effective business strategy, targeted on the customers' primary Hurts, is a good start. It is crucial to have a terrain oriented business strategy, keeping the customer Hurts in focus and identifying the potential fixes to these Hurts, and allow you to be more predictive in controlling the customer's decision..

Ask Your Customer...๏. ๏.

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6. "Can you identify the single most crucial action that will help your business be more successful?" This a great question that yield very important information. Not only will it help you realize your customer’s perspective on their primary business Hurt, it will also give you a clue to this customer's view of what they regard as a high-value solution.

7. "How well prepared are you to challenge your customers in a planned/predictive Hurt-Solution discussion?" A million dollar question...a well-informed, trained, engaging, and assertive team will yield a measurable gain to their business performance. The team must adhere to a customer-centric account management process, they must understand their customers’ business operations, and apply customer-specific data and information that reveals the customer's hurts and potential solutions.

8. "How effectively do you utilize Business Intelligence to predict your customers' needs and Hurts...and your Revenues?" This question will reveal the customer's grasp of the value of BI, and their commitment to the development and application of customer information in the direct and highly credible influence of that customer's decisions.

9. How effectively does your Business Intelligence link with your Operational Processes to yield your financial success measures? This question reveals if your customer's combined processes can provide high-quality, low-funnel wins...i.e., highly predictive forecasts of revenues and margins.

10. What is your expectation from us? Again a great question...this will reveal the conviction level of the customer, if they are they engaged in the decision process, if they are taking some ownership in the decision.

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TIGI’s Challenge to Win program takes you through a step-by-step process aimed at learning advanced techniques for sales teams, and ensures all that is taught is engrained through reinforcement training. The program equips you with the ability to harness the challenges facing you today, rather than fear them, so that you are able to use them to your advantage.

Learning how to master the skills can help you take charge of your company’s success.

Challenge Your Customers to Win

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“ Frank and open questions are a great way to know your customer, and understand their expectations of you.

Communicating a meaningful view point will have a positive impact on the customers. An

innovative approach, coupled with practical analysis of the business trends, facts and

figures will help deliver services with accuracy and precision, thus meeting the customers’

expectations.

The Total Innovation Group, Inc. (TIGI) is a multi-partner consulting firm, that specializes in business development programs and initiatives for our clients.

We assist you to increase your team's performance.How do we do this? We work with our leadership teams to assess their situation, diagnose the challenge, design the solution, and support the integration of the solution within the organization.

Our solutions help teams become more predictive in their execution and the resulting performance.

About Us๏. ๏.

www.tigi.netPhone: 813.814.1902

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Have additional questions?

Source: (1) Tom Peters, business author and speaker at IMD, the International Institute for Management Development, in Lausanne: http://www.tompeters.com/

Source: (2) John Sculley, the former president of Pepsi and the CEO of Apple:http://www.fastcoexist.com/1678570/former-apple-ceo-john-sculley-on-the-future-of-medical-technology-and-health-cares-killer-ap

Source: (3) Andrew Sobel in his new book, ‘Power Questions: Build Relationships, Win New Businesses and Influence Others’: http://andrewsobel.com/

Sources๏. ๏.

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