Hopefully you’re reading Elite Sales Strategies by Anthony Iannarino along with me. I’m up to chapter 5: Your Role as a Sense Maker.
“Your clients can only see what their existing lens provides them –
including how they view their problems, challenges, and opportunities.”
I often talk about providing insight; which according to Merriam-Webster online is
1: the power or act of seeing into a situation : PENETRATION
2: the act or result of apprehending the inner nature of things or of seeing intuitively
Your ability to help prospects and customers SEE differently than they did before your conversation is part of the value you bring. It is what makes having a conversation with you valuable. Many times it’s not how much you know… it’s what you know and share that was unknown to your prospect/customer before the conversation they had with you.
I started thinking about the folk tale from the Indian subcontinent about the blind men and an elephant. If you’ve not heard it before: It’s a story of a group of blind men who have never come across an elephant before. They learn and imagine what the elephant is like by touching it. Each blind man feels a different part of the elephant’s body, but only one part. The side, an ear, trunk, or the tusk. They then describe the elephant based on their experience. As you can imagine their descriptions of the elephant are different from each other!
Making sense in sales is helping the client see the whole elephant. It’s much easier to move an elephant if you understand what it is.
For more on inputs, elements of sense making, and outputs you’ll have to read the chapter yourself!