Managing Client Concerns

Is it good or bad when clients have concerns about what you’re proposing or about your company? What about when those concerns are about you? While none of us want clients to have concerns, the reality is that they do from time to time. What makes that troubling is not the concerns themselves, but the fact that they’re often not visible.

To manage something, we need to see it. Sure, there are times when a client expresses a concern, which in historical selling terms, we call an objection. And, a practiced ability to handle them is always in order. But, for the most part, client concerns can go unspoken. Like a disease that has not yet become clinical, these concerns work against us without our even knowing it. When the damage is in full swing, like a medical problem producing symptoms, we often have little to no time to respond. Worse yet, if the concern originates within the Power Base and our contacts are out of the Base, or it simply resides outside the client organizational scope that we’re covering, we may never know about it, or how it contributed to losing a deal.

So, what do we need to be attentive to:

• Always make contact with people in the opportunity’s Situational Power Base and work thoughtfully within and without the organizational scope that most business developers cover in the pursuit of an opportunity. Do your best to build relationships with a broad range of client individuals.
• Be direct, and as you demonstrate thought leadership in creating value for clients, ask everyone, throughout the sales cycle, if they have any thoughts, suggestions, or recommendations as to how you can better serve them – producing strong business value in a manner that is culturally and operationally aligned with their company.