Well, I wouldn't call this a smooth start.
Gary , a 26 year old belgian man who lives in Barcelona, wasn't really positive about the Fabulyzer. He works here in Barcelona for 4 years now and is a sales manager. He wakes up 3 times a week at 5 in the morning to work out at the beach and runs several times a week. He also likes to explore new sports such as climbing, kayaking,..
I was convinced that he would be the best person to start with..
My strategy was to use open questions and in-depth questions. As I asked why he doesn't trust activity trackers his first reaction was 'I don't know'..but by asking more in-depth questions I figured out what needs he has.
the conversation:
At the moment, Gary doesn't uses any similar gadgets such as calorie trackers, runkeeper, jawbone,.. . The reason for this is, that his belief in these sort of gadgets is almost nonexistent. Those activity trackers don't attract him because he doesn't believe in the software of those gadgets. He told me he would always prefer a personal trainer. Those gadgets are expensive and they can't motivate you as a personal trainer does.
Without having the chance to explain to him how the Fabulyzer will look like, he assumed that it would be a watch.
He would only consider to buy such a gadget if the gadget was able to provide the perfect workout schedule and a plan that evolves if you put in more and more details. The gadget should need to be able to show your own graphs and compare these results to a other people's graphs. So you can compare your fat management to other users. This gadget should combine everything in 1 device: calorie, fat management, hydration level,..
What I think are Gary's needs:
Gary needs evidence of how this gadget will make his measurements more precise and that the software is trustful and covers all the aspects of measurements (hydratation level, calories,..). He needs someone who motivates him and is convinced that a gadget will never substitute a personal trainer. He prefers a personal trainer and doesn't want to spend extra money on gadgets. If the gadget would substitute a personal trainer, he would be able to cut costs. The gadgets needs to be easy to keep with you all the time and easy to use. I can also conclude that he has the need to compete to others because he mentioned the fact that he wants to compare his results to others.
This sales blog helps you to be reflective about your learning to sell. This means that blog posts MUST NOT be a descriptive account of what you did but an opportunity to: share useful resources, tips with your peers on what works for sales; how and why you did what you did; what you now think about what you did; what ONGOING ITERATIONS you as an Individual need to make when securing YOURS AND YOUR TEAM goals and how YOUR TEAM has changed its assumptions. Make sure you evidence all your claims.
Toulouse Business School, Barcelona
Brilliant opening post Charlotte. Excellent learning on how we need now to take our user profiles (which are an idealistic set of assumptions) and test them before next week's workshop. What might be useful to ALSO share here in this blog post as a set of bullet points by updating/editing on your post:
ReplyDelete1) exactly what questions you went through the routine of asking him?
2) the sequencing of those questions and whether they were in the right order?
3) how you prepared for the interaction- and how you would do so differently with someone you don't know especially well but with a similar user profile
4) how your team's user profile has changed based on your experience
5) what you have learned about your "listening v telling" abilities in a dialogue- what disappointments AND what pleasant surprises did you reveal about yourself- and
6) how will these be used going forward into the real sales pitches and negotiations?
Best of luck,
Ed