salesVP80

VP Sales

Cost of Inaction - what's your best message?

We are all selling in a challenging economy. We are finding more buyers stay with the evil they know rather than risk working with a new vendor.

Our sales messaging is shifting to creating the pain of inaction earlier on in the buying process and using that as the theme throughout.

From cold call to disco to demo to close, what's your best message to call out the cost of inaction?

👑 Sales Strategy

☁️ Software Tech

22 comments

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SaaSguy

Tycoon

Account Executive

Dont skimp on pain/impact.
There are two types of impact:
Rational impact: ROI, risk, benefits, etcEmotional impact: personal benefits, how inactivity can impact their career, being the hero, etc
Do a deep, deep discovery and always being doing discovery even in later stages to get to the "why now" and find the compelling or critical event that drives timeline.
If you dont have a critical/compelling event, most times you will generate artificial urgency through discounts and timelines that benefit you, not the buyer.

GDO

Politicker

BDM

find the pain = find a buyer.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I agree - and it's important to keep validating these all along the way. Pain and timeline may also vary between contacts/departments.

salesVP80

Opinionated

VP Sales

great stuff - thank you!

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

You need to present 3 options - 1- the cost of your solution, 2- the cost of inaction, and 3- something far enough out there as to be a believable cost of going a different route. The goal is to get them to kick your option.

salesVP80

Opinionated

VP Sales

Great advice - do you use any tools to quantify 2 and 3?

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

Not really.

antiASKHOLE

Tycoon

Bravado's Resident Asshole

I mean.. it's pretty straight forward.. doing what you're currently doing isn't working and is costing you money....

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

"There's a reason you were looking for a solution"

salesVP80

Opinionated

VP Sales

Great response for a hand-raiser. What about for those that we are trying to create need and are taking that first demo "just to see what's out there" with no established budget, timeline, etc.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Take the meeting, but those are not active opportunities. They go in your nurture set until they qualify in.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Look how effective that one sentence is you savage 👑🐇

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Employing my own personal editor. Less is more.

Maximas

Tycoon

Senior Sales Executive

I see it this way too.

Justatitle

Big Shot

Account Executive

Getting them to say that what they are doing is not good/broken is step 1 step 2 is getting them to quanitfy the cost of inaction. from there it's usually a no brainer

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

As you go through the process, find out what you can about their current state - costs, effort, all of it. When the time comes to propose your solution, you should have context for where you fit in - do you save them money flat out in annual costs/maintenance what have you? Is it time you save them by automating some things rather than having manual processes? Time is money - draw that connection. How you message it will depend on your customer, but often being able to tangibly show the cost of doing nothing is very helpful to have. The key is making sure you have the right numbers and that any math is accurate and defensible.

salesVP80

Opinionated

VP Sales

I agree - quantifying the cost of inaction takes a lot of discovery and active listening

I_LOVE_WINE

Executive

Enterprise AE

Lots of good info in the comments already. I will double tap on some of these;
getting them to confirm that they have a problem with their current process
asking the impact questions - "what happens to the business if you don't solve for this (include timeline, "by x month")? what happens to you personally?" etc.
As always, you can't say the right thing to the wrong person so I would make doubly sure you are speaking to the/one of the decision makers or a true champion who, as @SaaSguysaid, has the motivation to compel change, especially if it can make their career.

salesVP80

Opinionated

VP Sales

well said!

ventox35

Politicker

Sales Leader

quantify pain. "what metric(s) are suffering because of this issue?""how widely felt is this issue in your organization?""fast forward 3 months, how do you think this issue will impact your company if it isn't solved?"
speak in terms of $$$ lost as a result of them pushing off this decision.
gotta quantify it as best as possible.

punishedlad

Tycoon

Business Development Team Lead

We establish this early on in conversations by touching on pains we KNOW they're dealing with currently. The cost of inaction becomes obvious from the get go, and most of the time they're already aware of it.

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

My product directly affects team's accomplishment capabilities when it comes to hitting internal goals. So... I often try to tie my business case or outreach message around the cost of not hitting goals.

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salesVP80

Cost of Inaction - what's your best message?

22 comments

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