Understanding and being able to quickly articulate the 5 W's
is the key to an in-depth knowledge of customers and opportunities.
No customer is so unique or complex that the overall business situation
requies more than five paragraphs and these five key topics.
Who: Who
is the customer? Not just the name of the company, but rather who in the company is the decision maker? Who benefits
from the purchase? Who will be negatively affected by a positive decison for your sales team? Knowing who in detail
unlocks a number of riddles.
What:
What is the product or service that is being bought? It may not be the same as what you are selling! For example,
you may be selling software, but the customer is buying peace of mind. Your software only facilitates the desired outcome.
When:
When will the purchase decison be made? When is the product or service required? It is ok to sell products that
are not yet created, as long as the sales team knows the "when" and is confident with the company's ability to deliver on
time. Knowing "when" accurately is very difficult!
Where:
Delivering sevices in the same time zone as headquarters is relatively easy. Delivering the same service twelve
time zones and two climates away is far more complex. Understanding the delivery channel, the delivery location, and
the "where" characteristics of the decision makers requires the ability to look beyond the obvious to discover the critical.
Why: Knowing
"why" a customer is considering a purchase is the key to understanding the framework of the sale. Customers buy to either
increase revenue or decrease costs. At the same time, there are a multitude of irrational, emotional reasons why even
a B2B purchase cannot always be modeled in a perfectly logical construction. Combining the logical with the emotional
is a fundamental technique in discovering "why".
