Tell us about your problems rather than your solutions

Usually, if we exclude those who go fishing or those who invite us just to have a comparison (yes, it happens!), the approach of customers generally takes two forms:

THE CUSTOMER WHO ASKS US FOR A SPECIFIC SERVICE

The most common case we experience. This can take the form of questions such as: "How can I improve the visibility of my site in search engines?", "I need a social strategy for my business", "I want implement an X, Y or Z performance measurement solution” or “I want to distribute my products on Amazon, how should I go about it”. The number of in-house digital experts on the client side is growing rapidly, which increases the frequency of this type of request. This is good news, the more we talk about digital, the faster and more firmly the shift will take place. On the other hand, this way of approaching a firm of experts can close the door too quickly to solutions that could have been better adapted to solve the basic problem.

THE CLIENT WHO EXPOSES US TO A BUSINESS PROBLEM

In this case, the requests one receives are more like “How do I increase my online sales?”, “How could the large amounts of traffic we have be monetized?” or finally, “How do we grow our business through digital?” The firm that receives these requests has to work a lot harder to respond to them, bring more people together, break down silos, integrate offers and think more deeply, but, believe me, this is the approach we prefer. This is what will generate the most value for our customers.

When you go to see your doctor, do you say "Could you remove my appendix Doctor?" or do you rather say to him: "I have a very bad stomach ache, could you examine me?"

It's kind of the same thing.

Submitting a problem as a customer opens up the possibilities and helps address the real, underlying, and deep issue that likely explains the symptom the organization is experiencing.  For example, a client who asks us to help them with their social strategy may have a deeper content strategy problem that requires more perspective but that will not only help to fix the social approach, but also to generate recurring traffic from search engines in addition to creating  paid digital media opportunities.

If the firm to which a problem is submitted must work harder to provide suitable solutions, it is to the benefit of the customer in the end . He will come out of the process with more global and more integrated solutions that will help him think about and visualize solutions in a more holistic way. Whether or not he does business with us, he will better understand his problem and will have made progress in his project. On the firm's side, she will also have gained a little more experience and will have been exposed to even more issues and client realities that will feed their background as consultants.

Even when many customer-side subject matter experts have already looked into the problem, an objective, non-internally involved, third-party team that recommends the approach to take will lend credibility to the solution. already found internally. So much the better if they arrive at the same approach, their external validation will have value. Consultants have, by nature, a greater ability to see the forest before the tree. So even then, it's best to submit a business problem instead of directly asking for a solution. 

At Adviso, our sales team bears the official name of "Strategic Development", because I really consider us as general practitioner consultants: we bring together the right experts and their solutions in an integrated approach that takes into account the business problem. overall. We are therefore not salespeople, but consultants, a large part of whose work is active listening.  

This active listening can sometimes be perceived as zeal or an overabundance of questions, but the goal remains to understand what caused the symptom to resolve it at the source and create synergies that will generate more value for our customers.

So if our team  challenges you  a bit when you submit a request to us, I promise you that it's not arrogance, but commitment to your context and your issues!