Everyone in agency new business and account management needs to know this
Most agencies want to understand what clients think.And it turns out prospective clients and existing clients are thinking different things.Tim Riesterer tests sales messages with B2B buyers (your prospects and clients) with a team of cognitive neuroscientists.His company ‘B2B Decision Labs’ is the research arm of Corporate Visions and clients include IBM and Deloitte.After reading his book ‘The Expansion Sale’ I invited Tim on the podcast to share his wisdom.If you’re in agency new business or responsible for account growth I urge you to stop what you’re doing and listen to the interview now (unless you’ve already worked with Tim!).If you don’t have time, here are a handful of highlights:
- Prospects aren’t thinking ‘why should I choose this agency?’, they’re thinking ‘why should I change what I’m doing?’
- Our hurdle is the prospect’s reluctance to change aka their ‘status quo bias’ and change is risky, costly and hard
- Status quo bias comprises 4 elements:
- Preference stability
- Anticipated regret and blame
- Perceived cost of change
- Selection difficulty
- Defeating status quo bias requires you to share what the client is missing not what they already know, ‘before & after’ evidence of others overcoming the change, the cost of doing nothing and the upside that is contrasting
- Asking lots of questions about their current situation and talking about you and your agency doesn’t disrupt status quo bias – and it doesn’t create any urgency to change
- 60% of new opportunities end in no decision because the client concludes they don’t need to change - so sticks with the incumbent
- Defeating status quo includes sharing ‘unconsidered needs’ e.g. problems the client doesn’t know they have/will have, changes they can’t see will affect them or insights from market changes they might be missing
- When selling to existing clients you are their status quo so don’t disrupt yourself
- Before introducing new ideas/proposals reinforce their choice of you by reminding them of the results you’ve achieved so far, the progress you’ve made, their ‘sunk’ in the relationship (because you don’t want your idea to initiate a competitive pitch)
This is just the tip of the iceberg and I would highly recommend you don’t miss it! You can listen here.
