Is Your Sale Stuck Over a Basic Issue?

by Stephen E. Heiman, Diane Sanchez with Tad Tuleja

From time to time, all of us encounter a customer who simply won’t agree to do anything more substantial than "think about it and get back to you." We run into situations where the sale just seems to be stalled, and nothing you can do or say seems to be able to move it forward. Sales reps have a million reasons for explaining why this happens. "The timing isn’t right now, I guess." "Our prices must be too high." "They’re strong for our competition." "The guy is stubborn; he just won’t see reason." And our personal favorite, "It’s politics."

These excuses are usually accompanied by the sound of madly spinning wheels. Sometimes they’re fairly close to reality; many times they’re light years away. Never do they describe the reason any sale slows down. No matter what the excuse, and no matter what the particular situation, there is always only one reason a person won’t give you any kind of commitment. It’s because she perceives a personal Lose in the acceptance of your solution—or at the very least, does not see a Win.

That’s the bottom line, every time. You can have the best product in the world, it can be perfectly suited to a given person’s real needs, and you can spend half the national budget taking her to lunch—all to no avail if she doesn’t perceive that the sale you’re trying to make is going to be a personal Win. In every case where the selling process is stalled by a "stubborn" or "difficult" or "price-sensitive" buyer, the reluctance can be translated into the same perception: "I don’t see what’s in this sale for me."

Because a customer’s Lose or No-Win perception can spell death for the most "surefire" sale, being able to pick up on a customer’s "I’m losing" signals is a valuable part of sales call management. The sooner you as a seller are able to spot and deal with a potential buyer’s Lose feelings, the sooner you’ll be able to move the selling process forward. Until you get to that point, you’ll just be taking the excuses for the reality.

That’s why an essential step in getting commitment, when that seems impossible, is digging for why the person feels he’s losing. In our Conceptual Selling program, we define that digging process in a very particular terminology. We say that whenever a customer feels that he is losing, there is a Basic Issue involved.

A Basic Issue is any personal feeling a customer might have that results in his or her believing, "I’m losing." Note the emphasis is on personal. Basic Issues are not concrete, quantifiable, "objective" realities, waiting to be tinkered with and fixed up by the savvy, product-wise salesperson. Basic Issues arise from deep within the customer’s individual experiences and value system. So they cannot be "overcome" or talked around like a reluctant buyer’s objection.

In fact, a Basic Issue and an objection, although they may both impede the selling process, are two very different things. An objection is merely the manifestation of an underlying Basic Issue; or, to put it in more exact terms, the Basic Issue is the hidden cause of the customer’s reluctance, while the objection is the visible effect. When someone raises an objection, he’s always giving you a signal that something underneath is troubling him. That "something" is a Basic Issue.

Another difference between an objection and a Basic Issue is that an objection is usually something tangible about the product or service or its implementation. Basic Issues, on the other hand, are related to the customer’s mental picture, or Concept. They may also involve negative feelings about you, your proposal, company, or something else apparently unrelated to the sales situation. But whatever their ostensible focus, Basic Issues, like any mental picture, are subjective, intangible, and personal. And until they are addressed, your are going to have a tough time making the sale.

Adapted from The New Conceptual Selling Stephen E. Heiman, Diane Sanchez with Tad Tuleja © 1999 by Miller Heiman, Inc., All rights reserved with permission of Warner Books. Inc.