(2021-02-18) Peiries Demand-side Sales Short Summary Notes

Shaving Pieries on Demand-Side Sales: Short Summary Notes. "People convince themselves, we convince them of nothing."

Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) is a theory of how people buy. Demand-side sales is a method popularized by Bob Moesta for building a sales program around JTBD.

Demand is about a fundamental struggle

Supply and demand are two different perspectives in sales.

When something's not working the struggling moment occurs.

Eliminating the struggle is not progress.

Customers overcoming the struggle is progress. This means to not remove the problem but to overcome it.

Their circumstances are a reference point for their progress, without understanding their starting place you cannot design their progress.

There's three types of motivation for people to make progress.

• Functional Motivation: How cumbersome is the purchasing process for the buyer
• Emotional Motivation: What are the positive and negative emotions that are driving the customers purchase?
  Fears, frustrations and desires?
• Social Motivation: How do other people perceive, respect, trust or acknowledge the customer?
  How proud would their family and friends be.

The four customer forces of progress

• they determine whether people can move from A to B and make progress.
• (F1) The push of the situation: The struggling moment for a person to buy a mattress is the requirement for a good nights sleep
• (F2) The magnetism of the new solution: The moment you realise that something might bring you a better night's sleep and help you make progress
• (F3) The anxiety of the new solution: Making the leap from one solution to another will raise anxieties as to whether the new solution will bring about positive change (will the new mattress delivers on its promise?)
• (F4) The habit of the present: You are used to the old mattress even though it sucks.

By seeing the world in this new light "buying" becomes a system.
(F1 + F2) > (F3 + F4)
The forces work as a system and sometimes, adding more features is not better because it causes additional anxiety.

Note: money is made on the anxiety side of the equation. Reducing anxieties around the solution gets them to what you're selling faster. If you can figure out what's holding people back, you can shortcut the sales process and increase profits.

The purchasing timeline

buyers have to go through certain stages in order to make the purchase happen... six stages... knowing your customer's stage in the timeline helps them move forward at their pace.

• vs typical 5 Stages of Consumer Buying Decision Process

1. First thought: "I have a problem".. helping customers create space in their brain about a problem they're having and admitting to it.

• Creating a first thought means that customers see things in a new way. (positioning?)
• There are four ways to create the first thought:
  Ask a good question and not give an answer
  Tell a story
  Give a new metric
  State the obvious

2. Passive looking: "Maybe I can do something". Passive looking is about learning about the problem.

• At this stage, it's about making your products/services repeatedly visible to the customer. Especially in places where they feel the struggle.
• help them connect the dots between the question in their brain (first thought) and your solution.

3. Active Looking: "I need to do something!". Active looking is like exploring the solution.

• they start narrowing down on solutions.
• These options help people create an ideal solution in their mind.
• It's important that the buyer has contrast; without contrast, it becomes impossible to decide.
• In the active looking phase, buyers need a time wall. Like an artificial deadline or a time box to move to the next phase of the timeline.

4. Deciding: "What's important and what's not? What do I care about?"

• People need something to reject before they can buy something else. Creating reference points is a form of elimination.
• In sales, the definition of making a tradeoff is about choosing the best way to make progress as opposed to compromising.
• The customer's understanding of quality, performance, and satisfaction starts here, and everything in the future is measured based on final expectation locked while they are deciding.

5. Onboarding: "Were my expectations met?"

• first use of the product or service and measuring it against the expectations they set when deciding to hire the solution.
• You want the customer to not only feel satisfied but excited and delighted about something they didn't know they'd want or get.
• Most people stop selling once the purchase is made. But progress is about making sure that you deliver on the expectations set.*

6. Ongoing Use "Am I building a habit with this product?"

• If you did not set expectations well, the consumer will have a new struggling moment, which over time can lead to another big hire from a different solution.

You as a salesperson has to meet the buyer in each of the six stages.
Your goal is to create an input at each of the six stages that trigger the desired output, which ultimately leads to an ideal outcome for the customer.

A lot of the time, sales feels icky.

It's icky because you might not believe that the product will help the customer make progress.

I like JTBD theory and Demand Side Selling because it takes an honest and empathetic approach to helping customers get to where they need to be. If you're failing to do so, it'll help you understand why.