Why Haven’t You Done That Yet?

As most salespeople know, there are many sales formulas and processes that have been prescribed by many self-proclaimed sales gurus over the years. It is hard to keep track at any given moment in time what you should be saying or doing. Especially in a discovery call, there is a whole laundry list of questions you may want to ask. So what are the best questions to ask?

I often default to mirroring what someone is saying or asking open-ended questions so that I can learn more information. However, there is a difference between simply learning more information and learning the most useful information. With that in mind, I have found that there is one open-ended question that trumps the rest: “Why haven’t you done that yet?” This question is so important that I am contemplating writing an entire book about it. But for now, let’s condense it into a more easily digestible blog.

Everyone – no matter how well off they are – is experiencing all different types of pain in any given moment of time. Sometimes they are keenly aware of the pain. Other times they are not aware of the pain. What I mean by the latter statement is something like this: imagine a scenario where you sell the ability to teleport. Most people who would be potential buyers of your solution would not even realize that teleportation exists. Therefore, they may not be consciously thinking about how much time they spend going to and from certain places, or the vacations they do not take because of the travel commitment that would be involved. In such a hypothetical scenario, they are not aware of the pain that teleportation solves. Or, at bare minimum, they might be aware of the problem, but they may not be prioritizing it since they assess that only incremental improvements could be made rather than the type of wholesale change that would be worth pursuing. Either way, the solution does not need to be as amazing and hypothetical as teleportation. Indeed, many sales occur due to someone experiencing pain and becoming ecstatic to uncover that a solution exists.

Such is the first layer of the question “Why haven’t you done that yet?” I call this the Awareness Layer. Fundamentally, it is important to understand if it is simply a matter of awareness about the solution that has blocked someone from solving their problem. If awareness of the solution is the key component to solving the problem, then education and validation become key components to obtaining buy-in. In the industry I currently sell in (healthcare benefits), it is often the case that someone is not aware that the solution I offer exists. They spend exorbitant sums of cash on their healthcare benefits for their employees believing the status quo is one they have to muster, and they are thrilled to discover that there is another way. Naturally, their first inclination is to feel “this is too good to be true.” Much of the sale is therefore spent on demonstrating that we can actually deliver the thing we say we deliver and eliminating fear of what can go wrong. Either way, it is important to know where you stand so that you know how you need to handle the dialogue.

Although awareness is one component, it is often the case that people are aware of a problem but have simply decided not to solve it. This introduces the second layer – the Prioritization Layer. To my earlier point, everyone has problems. In your daily life, you will encounter thousands of micro-problems. You are hungry, so you need to get to the kitchen. You need to put one foot in front of the other, and then you need to do it again, ad nauseam, until you reach the kitchen. You need to extend your hand to open the door. You need to reach for the food. You get the idea.

Obviously, most of the problems you face on a daily basis have more significance than just walking to the kitchen. But it does not change the fact that even if you are stressed out one day, the moment you decide to eat lunch is still the moment you decide that eating lunch has higher priority than whatever other stress you are dealing with. Such is the ebb and flow of problems throughout peoples’ lives. At any given moment, the prioritization hierarchy of problems can fluctuate dramatically. This is why it is crucial to understand where the problem you solve sits on that ladder, and why.

Once you understand the Prioritization Layer, you can start to understand whether or not you should even be selling your solution to begin with. For example, I used to sell technology to commercial lenders that automated the document collection process. Our technology would layer on top of the software the bank used, which was often manual and cumbersome. If a bank was in the process of implementing such a technology, chances were they would not be prioritizing our solution, and for good reason. Why is that? Two major reasons. First, they were far too busy in their existing implementation and too many important people in the bank had put their necks on the line for that software to have their people focused on anything else. Second, only once that technology was fully implemented would their users to start to experience the type of gaps that our solution solved. For that reason, we started using signal-based data that could tell us where a bank was in their adoption of such technologies and we targeted them appropriately. 

However, even if a customer is a good fit for your solution, there may be other reasons why you do not fall to the top of their prioritization list. A very common reason is just that they simply do not realize the level of pain they are in without your solution. Through a series of questions, you may uncover that they find something else to be much more painful than the pain you solve. Oftentimes that is because the pain is acute. Think about the difference between a toothache and a cavity. A toothache hurts so the urgency to solve it feels quite real. However, you may never know you have a cavity, which could lead to the decay of your entire tooth if left unaddressed. Deciding not to address the cavity would be a massive mistake. This is where understanding the metrics that matter to your client is so important. Understand those metrics, understand why they decided on those metrics, and determine whether or not you can show them a greater level of impact by prioritizing the problem you solve.

The third layer to the hierarchy is the Fear Layer. Buyers very often know that they have a problem they should prioritize and they will still choose not to fix it. This is because they are living in fear…of something. The fear could be quite straightforward. They could just fear getting fired for “rocking the boat” too much. If the status quo feels OK to their superiors, what do they have to gain by fixing something no one was even worried about to begin with? The reality for them in this situation is that even though they could theoretically go to their boss with a big win, they are also now introducing the risk of unnecessarily introducing a big loss, and that loss could result in them losing their job.

What else do buyers fear? They fear wasting time. They fear politics within their own organization. Believe it or not, they even fear letting you down. In the same way they might be scared of being in a relationship with a significant other for fear of letting the other person down, they may feel the same way about engaging you as a vendor. Unless you understand what they are afraid of, you have no shot of going forward.

That introduces the fourth and final layer to the hierarchy you may uncover through the “Why haven’t you done that yet?” question. The final layer is the Competitive Layer. Your buyer may actually be so far down the funnel that they actually are doing something about it – with your competitor. They could be anywhere in that process. They could be evaluating a solution, implementing a solution, or even using a solution. They may even be using a solution that does not solve the problem the same exact way you do, or to the extent that you do. My point is, they may answer you by saying “Actually, we are doing something about that.” This would be a great answer to receive because it indicates that your buyer has already crossed the other three elements off their list.