Ask a salesperson about their client's budget and they'll answer instantly, ask them about their client's real issues, challenges and vision, and watch them stall.

The above-mentioned statement should bother you, and I hope it's a wake-up call.

If the only thing you know about your client is what they buy, what they spend, and when they buy it, you don’t really know your client, you know their transactional history.

Sales professionals dig deeper, they go way beneath the surface.

Sales professionals understand what’s happening inside the business, where their clients are trying to go, their vision, what’s getting in the way, and what success looks like to them.

The more you understand, the more relevant you become. The more relevant you become, the harder you are to replace.

As we spend time together, I encourage you to stop selling to the budget, and start understanding the business.

Stop chasing orders and start uncovering the opportunity.

How Much Do You REALLY Know?

I'm going to ask you to put your thinking cap on for this one. Are you ready?

Imagine executive leadership sitting down with you tomorrow, and they asked you... Tell me everything you know about your best client.

What would you truly and I mean truly say?

You’d probably say...

• How long you’ve worked with them

• What they buy and how often

• How much revenue they generate

• Who your primary contact is

• Maybe even their spouse’s name, their kids’ names, and what sports team they follow

All fine, however; what does this show executive leadership? What might they start thinking about when it comes to this client?

Allow me to take this deeper and expose the opportunity.

How well do you know...

• Their top three business goals?

• Their most important initiatives?

• What are they trying to change?

• What are they excited about?

• Where do they want the business to be three years from now?

• What does their CEO care about?

• What does their CFO care about?

Now... Answer this one... What's their vision for the future and how are you helping them get there?

If you can't answer those questions, then you may not know your client as well as you think you do, and my friends, not knowing creates vulnerability.

A Great Relationship Doesn't Mean You're Safe

You can have a so-called solid relationship with clients and still be replaceable.

How does that sit with you?

Familiarity isn't the same as relational depth.

Knowing someone's favorite restaurant isn't the same as knowing what they're trying to accomplish professionally.

Knowing what they bought last month isn't the same as understanding where they're taking the business.

Being the person who gets the purchase order isn't the same as being the person they call when they're thinking about the future.

My challenge to the sales community is to move beyond transactional selling and build authentic relationships, meaningful value, inspirational experiences, and disciplined habits.

The goal isn't simply to be liked, the goal is to become trusted.

Trust gives you access to conversations competitors can't easily replicate.

Your Mirror Moment

Just for a moment, imagine your biggest competitor walked into your client's office tomorrow.

They sit down and start chit-chatting, and your client gets asked... So, tell me, where are you taking the business over the next 6 to 9 months?

Your client starts talking and talking and talking.

They share their goals, initiatives, challenges, vision, frustrations, opportunities, and aspirations, as your competitor listens.

Subtly they ask... What would it take to help you get there?

Now tell me this... Are you still confident that you're the most valuable salesperson in that account? Or are you suddenly a little uncomfortable?

I hope this scenario got you a bit uncomfortable, because discomfort creates awareness, and awareness creates opportunity.

Your Client's Future Is Your Opportunity Map

One of the biggest mistakes salespeople make is becoming experts on their client's past and present while knowing almost nothing about their future.

You know what they buy, and you know what they use.

You know what they complain about, and you know what they need today.

However, what are they trying to accomplish tomorrow?

Instead of asking your clients... How can I help?

Ask them... If you could accomplish one thing over the next 12 months that would fundamentally change the business, what would it be?

Instead of asking your clients... Do you need anything else?

Ask them... What are the biggest initiatives you're working on right now?

Instead of pitching your solution, get curious about their destination.

Once you understand where your clients are going, you can start helping them get there.

Stop Calling One Person "The Account"

Here's one ginormous dangerous assumption made by many salespeople... I have a great relationship with my client.

Really? Or do you have a great relationship with one person?

• What happens if that person leaves?

• What happens if a new executive arrives?

• What happens when procurement gets involved?

• What happens when the CFO starts asking different questions?

• What happens when a new leader comes in with a different vision?

• What happens when your competitor already has relationships with the people you've never bothered to meet?

Your account isn't a person, your account is an ecosystem of people, perspectives, priorities, and agendas.

My challenge to the sales community is to build deeper relationships with multiple people inside their accounts, go high, wide deep, to understand their individual goals, initiatives, and challenges.

Folks, that's not account maintenance, it's account protection.

Your Competitor Doesn't Have to Be Better

Here's some uncomfortable truth... Your competitor doesn't necessarily need a better product.

They may not even have better pricing, they may simply understand the client better.

By this I mean...

• They may know the client's strategic initiatives

• They may know what leadership is trying to accomplish

• They may know what's frustrating the operations team

• They may know where the company is headed

• They may know what the client wants to change

Because they know those things, they can bring ideas your client didn't know they needed.

I hate to burst your bubble, but that's competitive differentiation. It's not another feature, brochure or another discount, it's pure relevance.

Become the Professional Who Brings the Future Into the Conversation

Put your thinking cap on for a moment, and what if your clients began thinking... I wonder what they're going to bring me next.

Isn't that a powerful position to be in with your clients? It means you're no longer merely responding.

• You're contributing to their business

• You're bringing insights

• You're connecting ideas

• You're sharing what you're seeing in the marketplace

• You're helping them think differently

• You're helping them solve business issues

• You're helping them anticipate

This is all about you bringing meaningful value and creating an inspirational experience.

This is about you bringing a strategic visionary approach to your clients by bringing relevant ideas and insights into the conversation, and then applying them to their business, not simply turn a meeting into another sales pitch.

This subtle business move is the difference between being a vendor and becoming a valuable business resource.

What Inspires Your Client?

I must ask you... What inspires your client?

This isn't about what motivates their company.

This is much deeper...

• What inspires them?

• What do they want to accomplish?

• What legacy are they trying to create?

• What do they care deeply about?

• What kind of leader do they want to become?

• What would make them proud five years from now?

• What does success mean beyond a number on a spreadsheet?

These questions matter immensely because business is personal.

Behind every company strategy is a human being making decisions.

Behind every initiative is a person carrying responsibility, and behind every goal is a reason.

When you understand the reason, you understand more than the requirement, you understand the meaning, and meaning creates deep levels of connection.

Account Protection Isn't "Staying in Touch"

In my world, account protection and management means creating such meaningful relational and business depth that replacing you becomes massively difficult.

Protection isn't created by hoping the client stays loyal, it's created by continuously earning the relationship.

You earn it through...

• Being curious about their business

• Bringing business insight

• Consistent follow-through

• Knowing their business and their people

• Helping them to think differently

• Showing up before they ask

• Becoming useful in ways that go beyond what you sell

Trust isn't a trophy you win once, it's something you continue to build.

Your Mirror Moment

Take your top five clients, write their names down. Now, without looking anything up, answer these questions for each one. I know what you're thinking... Yes, that's a lot of questions.

1. What are their top three business goals?

2. What are their most important initiatives right now?

3. What are their biggest challenges?

4. What does their leadership team want to accomplish?

5. What does their future vision look like?

6. What are they personally excited about?

7. What are they worried about?

8. Who are the six or more people influencing decisions?

9. What does each decision maker value?

10. What business insight have you brought them recently?

11. When was your last strategic conversation about their future?

12. What have you done recently that made their experience with you memorable?

13. If your primary contact left tomorrow, how strong would your relationship with the rest of the organization be?

I strongly believe this... Your answers or lack thereof will tell you something. They'll tell you whether you truly know your client or whether you simply know your account.

How does that sit with you?

The Question You Can't Afford to Avoid

I believe the most important question isn't whether your clients like you, as I'm sure they probably do.

Maybe it's not whether they trust you, as I'm sure they trust you enough to do business with you.

The bigger question is... Do they trust you enough to invite you into their future?

I'm here to tell you this... This is where the real opportunity lives. When you know where your client is going, you can help them get there.

When you understand their goals, you can help create outcomes.

When you understand their challenges, you can bring ideas.

When you understand their vision, you can become part of the journey.

When you understand what inspires them, you stop selling to an account and start serving a person.

When you build genuine, authentic relationships with multiple people, create meaningful value, deliver an inspirational experience, and follow through with disciplined habits, you create something competitors cannot easily copy.

Those are the four elements of the Trust Formula emphasized throughout my book, Selling in a Post-Trust World.

So... How Much Do You REALLY Know?

As we bring our time together to a close, I ask you to deeply reflect upon this... If your competitor knew your client's...

• Goals

• Initiatives

• Challenges

• Vision

• Inspiration

• People

• Priorities

• Fears

• Aspiration

And they knew this better than you did, then who would your client call when the next big opportunity appeared?

Allow our journey together to become your wake-up call.

Open your eyes to the opportunity to go deeper into your client's business, ask better questions, listen differently, learn something new about their business, learn more about their people, and learn their future.

Your next opportunity may not be hiding somewhere in your pipeline, it may be hiding inside a client you already have.

The salesperson who discovers it first won't necessarily be the one with the best pitch, it will be the one who cared enough to understand.

Time to go have a different conversation.

Originally published on Larry Levine's LinkedIn.