When you sell a solution, you may also be assigning homework to your customer.

Your solution gives customers access to your expertise, takes work off their hands, or helps them achieve something they cannot easily accomplish alone. But benefiting from it also requires something from them. They may need to gather information, make decisions, learn something new, or make a change to how they currently work.

What you see is the improvement ahead. What they may be seeing is everything they have to work through to get there.

If you want to understand why a potential customer keeps postponing their decision to move forward, seeing the obstacles through their eyes is a useful place to start.

Some of the Work Is Unavoidable

As an accountant, I routinely ask my clients for paperwork, records, and other information. I need those details to understand their businesses and do the work they’ve hired me to do. Until they provide the necessary information, I can’t get started.

Hiring me does not remove their responsibility to provide that information. My knowledge and experience become useful when I have something to apply them to.

Many businesses have a similar dependency. A website designer needs content and decisions about colours, layout, and functionality. A consultant needs the customer to explain how the business operates and what they want to achieve. Even someone taking over a task needs enough direction to know what they are taking over.

The practical question is: What must the customer contribute, and how can you make that contribution easier for them?

You can give this some thought before you have your next sales conversation.

Write Down What Happens Once They’ve Signed Up With You

Think of one product or service you offer and list what the customer must do to begin benefiting from it. A potential customer may already be anticipating that work while deciding whether to hire you. Reviewing what happens after the sale can help you understand what is holding them back before it.

Be specific. “Complete onboarding” tells you very little.

For me, it’s “Tell me more about what you hope to achieve”, “Decide on the scope of the project”, “Read and sign this document”, and “Provide me with this year’s and last year’s records.”

What’s yours?

For each customer task, ask yourself:

• Is it absolutely necessary? In other words, would removing it prevent you from delivering the service properly?
• Is it needed immediately? Does it have to happen before work begins, or can it wait until a later stage?
• Is it clear? Would someone unfamiliar with your work understand what to provide, how to provide it, and when you need it?

Keep what is essential. Remove requests that don’t serve a useful purpose. Where your process allows it, ask for information in phases: initially only the information needed to get started, and the rest later. This removes some of the initial friction for the customer.

This does not mean promising to begin without the necessary inputs. It means knowing exactly what those inputs are, so you can give the customer a clear starting point.

To examine the process more closely, you can map the steps customers take and identify where they encounter difficulty. Nielsen Norman Group’s guide to analyzing a customer journey offers useful questions for spotting unnecessary steps and points of friction.

Ask About the Task They Are Stuck On

“Are you ready to move forward?” isn’t the greatest question. The response is usually “yes”, “no”, or another delay. You may not learn about difficulties they might be experiencing.

A more useful question is:

“Is there anything about getting started that would be difficult for you right now?”

Listen for the specific task. Their answer should guide you in what you suggest next. Connecting with your ideal client includes giving them room to explain what is making the decision difficult.

For example, if a customer says, “I’m not clear on what you need,” provide a specific checklist, including an example where useful.

If they say, “I don’t have time to get everything together,” explain what information is essential to begin and whether the rest can be provided in stages.

If they’re worried that getting set up will disrupt their day-to-day work, explain what will change, what disruption they can expect, and how the transition will be handled.

And if they need someone else involved before making a decision, clarify what that person needs to contribute and ask how they can be included in the process.

Simply repeating the features and benefits will leave many of the difficulties unresolved.

Make Requests That Are Practical

Consider the difference between:

1. “Please send the information we discussed so we can get started.”

And:

2. “To begin, please send the three items listed below. I’ve explained what each should include and how to send it. If you’re not able to locate something, let me know what’s missing so we can discuss the next step.”

Both requests give the customer work to do. But Request #2 also tells them what completion looks like and what to do if they encounter a problem.

The same principle applies before someone purchases. Explain what participation your service requires while they are still deciding whether to buy. Let them know up front if they need to attend meetings, provide materials, or learn a new process.

That gives them a realistic basis for deciding whether they are in a position to proceed. It also helps the customer’s experience match what your marketing led them to expect, reducing the chance of a sale turning into a stalled project because they did not understand their part.

Make “Later” More Specific

Sometimes, now isn’t the right time for them.

If someone needs to wait until after their busy season, discuss a realistic date to revisit the project. If another decision must come first, clarify what that decision is. With their agreement, arrange a follow-up around that timing.

Just specifying “later” doesn’t give either of you much to work with because it’s indefinite. Identifying a specific condition can help distinguish a workable delay from a project that has no clear path forward.

Explain honestly any consequences of waiting so the customer can weigh them against the time, effort, and disruption involved in getting started.

Before your next sales conversation, be sure to review one offer and improve one step that asks something of the customer. Rewrite a request to make it clearer, specify the essential starting information, or explain a transition you have been leaving them to figure out.

You may not be able to remove their homework completely. But you can make the first step clear, explain what can wait, and help them work through what is holding them back.

Building a business involves decisions like these that are easy to overlook when you are focused on your product or service. Subscribe to Ready Set Grow’s weekly newsletter below for a link to each new article, along with practical discussion that will help you develop your business.