Nothing happens in a High Performance Revenue Engine without demand. Now this demand is driven in a variety of ways or what I call Demand Channels. For example one Demand Channel could be email marketing. In this channel some number of individual campaigns are created and executed against specific targets. Another might be search engine optimization or SEO. Here you would optimize your website and content for specific terms and when prospects search for those terms they will have a better chance of finding you. A fully operational High Performance Revenue Engine could have an untold number of Demand Channels.
One of the most important Demand Channels is the salesperson themselves. As a salesperson you have a quota to make. Your livelihood depends on it and at the end of the day it is your job to make sure you have enough demand to hit your number. One of the best ways to accomplish this mission is to help your customers and prospect find and solve problems they don’t even know they have yet.
I think it is a three step process:
Challenge the way things are. A great way to do this is by using third party or industry examples. Companies like Forester and Aberdeen do a great job of providing information that can be helpful. Your objective in this step is to create a question and hopefully a bit of fear and uncertainty in the prospects mind about the way things are. By the time you are done with this step you should have the prospects attention and created their interest.
Paint a new picture. Once you raise the awareness in the prospect that the problem exists you have to then show them the path to a solution. As you paint your picture you have to get the customer to feel and see the way things could be. This is the part of the process where you have to instill the desire to address the issue in the customer.
Provide the solution. Now that the prospect has a clear view of the way things are and the way things could be it is time for the value. You have to give them the solution. When you get to this point you have driven demand. You have created a prospect with a defined opportunity now its time to jump right into the sales cycle and build your business case.
Of course this is not the only way for a salesperson to be a Demand Channel but it is one of the most effective.