Here’s What Happens If You Don’t Know the Customer’s Problem

By Scott Sambucci | March 11, 2021

“Me: “Hi, [his name]. Scott Sambucci from Altos Research.” 

Him: “We’re not interested.” 

Click. End conversation. 

Me: “Expletive! Expletive! Expletive!” (Trust me; it was really, really bad.) 

I was shell-shocked. We spent months working with them, explaining our models, showing the validity of our results, and educating them on how the model was the only one in the world that could provide them with this view of the housing market.

What happened? I never got a view of what problem they needed to solve. Looking back, they led every conversation by asking questions about our data, model, and process, but I never once asked them why they were interested in the Forward Valuation Model. They had some of the smartest analysts and traders on their desks. What gap did they need to fill? What problem were they trying to solve? Worse, I never established our company’s expertise in the problem that we solved and how it would provide a competitive advantage to the customer.

This was 100 percent on me—I failed to identify the problem at hand, and thus never had any leverage in the sales process.”

[Excerpt from my book – “Stop Hustling, Start Scaling.”]

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