By Jeffrey Gitomer
Sales Moves

Thinking.

Business thinking.

You have opportunities to think every day. The big questions are: How do you do it? And, once you’ve arrived at your thought, or your idea, or your response, how do you deliver it? Or, better stated, who is the message in terms of?

Everyone will tell you to think things all the way through. But no one is able to teach that methodology effectively, unless they think “outcome.” And unless they think “customer.”

That’s the secret. Don’t just think it through. Think it through to the desired outcome that the customer wants.

A customer calls with what you perceive is a simple problem, but I have found that what most people consider a problem, I look at as a symptom. Think of it as applied thinking.

Here’s a real-world scenario that happens in every business, hundreds of times a day:

1. Someone calls and presents you with a complaint, a problem, a question, a service call, an order, an opportunity or even an idea.

2. You pause, and take the time to think. You may think to yourself, or think in writing, or think out loud, or think about the situation, or think about the resolution, or maybe even think about the outcome, or some combination of these scenarios. In short, you try your best, using your experience, combined with your corporate rules, to think it all the way out.

3. Now it’s time to respond, or even try to resolve. You present your reaction, your ideas, your solutions, and your thoughts.

The question is: In terms of whom? Who have you thought and responded in terms of? Is it, “What we can do?” Or is it, “Here’s what we can do to get you what you really wanted.”

The object of thinking is to flesh the idea all the way out from the beginning of the opportunity to the outcome, to the solution, all the way out to the end, all in terms of what the customer really wants.

Here’s how to think it through to a win for everyone:

Listen to the situation.

Discover the symptom and the problem.

Communicate the action.

Reassure the customer you know what they really want.

Look for an opportunity.

Create an add-on idea.

Wow them.

Here’s a real world example: Let’s say you’re in the lawn sprinkler business. Your customer calls and says, “My sprinkler is broken. I need it fixed.” If you think: “Service call, go fix the sprinkler,” then you’re thinking wrong. You should think: “This is not a problem; this is a symptom.” What the customer really wants is a green lawn. Aha!

To get them that green lawn you have to fix their sprinkler.

Here’s the opportunity: Fix the sprinkler, and give them a bag of fertilizer branded with your company’s name to help them achieve the green lawn they really want. If at all possible, capitalize your opportunity by branding your wow factor.

It’s not what’s wrong that matters; it’s what they want.

If you just fix the sprinkler, you might get a thank you. Just fix what’s wrong, and you might get nothing. If you help them get what they want, and add a wow, you will earn a referral and word-of-mouth advertising.

As you think things through, ask yourself: Why do they want a green lawn? Pride, showing off, being the envy of the neighborhood, providing a place for the kids to play, a garden.

Discover these answers, document them in a customer file, and now you can get from that initial wow to a relationship.

Here’s another example: Ever make an airline reservation? Do the airlines know your problem? Your desired outcome? No. They make you a reservation, and hang up.

Except for one airline: Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic. They ask you where you’re going when you land. People don’t want to fly; they want to land. And when they land, they gotta go someplace.

Virgin arranges limousine transportation to your destination as part of its upper class fare. Now that’s a wow.

Think about the ten prime reasons customers call you. Figure out the symptom, the problem, the customer’s desired outcome and then discover the opportunity to wow them. Then act.

Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible and The Little Red Book of Selling, is president of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer. E-mail him at salesman@gitomer.com.

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