The cover story of the March issue of the Harvard Business Review (HBR) is Provoke Your Customers, by Lay, Hewlin and Moore. For anyone who is wondering how to create customer value and stand out among your competition with customers in this down economy, it is worth a read for two reasons.
First, it delineates the difference between solution selling and “provoking” your clients into a whole new way of thinking about their business. It talks about a strategy of helping clients put a name to a problem they already feel, but can’t quite articulate yet. Provocation selling pushes the salesperson to first step much more deeply into the shoes of the customer – to strategically reflect on the road the customer is travelling, the mountains and sink holes ahead of him/her, and how an out-of-the-box solution could jump him/her ahead of the competition. This approach is very different than assuming your customer has the same old issues/needs. If your only approach is solution selling, then your only option in this economy is to push your product or service harder. Which may not endear you to customers who are struggling, just like you, to do more with less.
The second reason I recommend this article is that it is a good reminder to leaders (who must sell their vision, priorities and solutions to their teams and other internal and external customers, every day) to remember to promote perspective shifting skills/activities on a regular basis. Especially when the pressure in on and fear is running rampant, people tend to default to what worked in the past and what they believe to still be true. As opposed to cultivating individual mindsets and organizational cultures that look at customers/the marketplace with new eyes and apply creative thinking find innovative solutions.
