Have you ever felt that you just don’t get good enough market feedback from the field? Is sales not providing you with details around the customer problem? Do you get basic feature requests instead of good (and relevant) descriptions of business problems? Well, you’re not alone and there’s a simple reason why.
So what type of sales folks do you have in your organization?
Do you have order takers like at McDonalds?
Or do you have problem solvers?
It’s really important to understand this one simple question if you want to get the most meaningful input from the field. Why? Well if your goal is to understand what sorts of capabilities need to be in the next set of releases, having a problem solver provide input is a lot more helpful than having an order taker provide input.
Order takers do simply that – they listen to a customer and take their order. Just like at McDonalds, customers go in and are expected to know what they want and then ask for it. No one calls the guy behind the cash register at McDonalds a Hunger Solution Specialist. Would you ever ask that guy “what would you recommend for my hunger problem?”. Hell no. That guy would look at you with a blank stare and point at the menu. That’s it.
Truth is, there are a lot of software products that just need order takers, not problem solvers. The commodity-level products that are easily quantified and compared – typically there is little if any differentiation and the problem is rather simple and very well known.
On the other hand, problem solvers go in where, even if the customer thinks they have identified the solution, often the problem is so complex that the true nature of the issue hasn’t even been correctly identified. You know the sort. When a customer says “I need XYZ functionality” instead of pressing that request into their order entry screen, the typical response is “what type of problem are you hoping to solve with that? Let’s talk about it”.
That approach is something very simliar to what physicians take. With patients, often the identified problem is just a symptom of a deeper issue. Even if the identified solution is “pain medication” to solve pain for instance, often pain is just the symptom and the physician has to drill-down into the real nature of the problem.
It’s just the same for software products that don’t easily fit into the “order taker” sales approach.
Don’t have any problem solvers? Don’t blame sales. When you deal with monthly, quarterly, and annual quotas, it’s pretty easy to want to sell the customer what they want, even if it’s not exactly what they need. Asking questions can prolong the sales cycle and could even cost the sale entirely. Not a good thing. But there’s a way around it.
But it involves work. And it also involves conceding the often high-minded principles of product managers that think “salespeople don’t know anything”. Gotta kill that mindset now – they DO know something – you just gotta be clever enough to get the real goods.
So the first thing: take all of your ideas regarding sales engagement that involve publishing surveys, holding monthly calls, and distributing draft project charters and chuck ‘em. Those things don’t work well here.
Next: Identify some key sales champions. You know, the ones that really appear to know the product and it’s target market. If your company is profitable, you’re sure to have at least one. If your company is not profitable – look for another job – this aint the 90’s.
Step Three: Make sure you talk to these folks at least once a month but don’t try to schedule it. These guys are always on the road so the chore is yours to get them when they’re available. During your conversation, ask them about what deals they’re working on. Ask them if there were/are any hurdles. Then ask them what problem the customer is trying to solve. Then ask them what product capabilities they’re focusing on to solve the problem.
Doing this, you get the salesperson to have a conversation that, while pertaining to the deal (and thus making it sound like you’re trying to help them with their pipeline pursuits), is built around the classic problem/solution language that is critical to have if you want to properly align the product with the target market.
Oh, and if you do this regularly, they feel as though you’re paying attention to their needs and less likely to come asking for certain features – and if they do ask, they are more likely to have the story behind the request.
