#132: Do you have a snowboard?
The Communicate to Influence Blog
A heated debate broke out in a recent client training I was delivering. The participant was looking to pitch a cloud based e-Learning platform that his organisation had developed to help train their clients on technical skills. He would ask his client if they already had online technical skills training content, and if they responded “No”, he would then proceed to pitch his company’s offering.
I commented that before pitching his company’s offering, he should first ask whether the client actually needed an online eLearning platform. The debate became heated because every time I said he first needed to confirm the client’s needs, my student repeated that all client need access to technical training, therefore they needed his product if they didn’t already have it. What he was failing to comprehend was that he was making a judgement that was based on assumption rather than fact.
I reframed the situation by asking him if he had a snowboard. He replied he did not to which I responded “well you need one!”. Indignantly he replied that he had no need for a snowboard because he doesn’t like snow sports!, to which I replied “...but you don’t have one so you must need it!”
Just because the training was conducted in a city within a two hour drive of world class ski resorts does not mean that everyone around the table needed skis or a snowboard. By the same virtue, just because the client needed technical training, it didn’t follow that my students cloud platform was the solution they were looking for – there are other options for delivering technical training.
When we fail to challenge our assumptions we take a number of unnecessary risks. First, we could be addressing an non-need. The last thing that any client wants is to not be understood. By talking about something that is not needed, we indicate a fundamental lack of understanding and show a lack of respect. Secondly, we risk wasting both our time and the clients. Rather than using valuable time discussing something that we have verified as needed, we use time in a self-serving manner talking about what is important to us, not the client.
Just because someone doesn’t have something that you can offer, it doesn’t mean that they need it. Ascertaining that they don’t have what you can offer is a valid first step, however you then need to understand how they currently deal with the problem you are solving for (eg technical training) before you can map, with any accuracy, your offering to their needs.
And this brings me to one of my favourite quotes from Henry Ford; “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse”.
Sometimes people don’t actually know what they need because they don’t know what’s available. They know the problem they have and how they are currently addressing it (eg getting from A to B by horse). Often their approach is sub-standard and we can improve on it (eg with an automobile which the target population had never heard of). My student’s client may well have required his eLearning solution, however before jumping to that conclusion show that you understand your clients’ needs by developing an appreciation of their current situation. This will make it more likely that you offer them something that fits with their needs, save everyone a lot of time, and result in more wins.
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