Post-M&A, salespeople are often overwhelmed by new products. Instead of trying to learn every feature, conduct a "listening tour" with customers. Understand their unique definitions of value, as what's important to one is irrelevant to another, even if they look similar on paper.
Don't overwhelm an enterprise buying committee by pitching all of your product's features. Instead, survey each member to find the 2-3 features that resonate most broadly. Focus all messaging and demos on just those features to create a clear, concentrated value proposition.
After an acquisition, don't try to learn and sell the entire new product catalog at once. This leads to overwhelm. Instead, select a small, relevant batch of products (e.g., five) to focus on for a set period, then rotate to a new batch. This creates a manageable, step-by-step learning process.
True product intuition isn't just from standard discovery calls. It's forged by directly engaging with customers' most urgent problems on escalation calls. This unfiltered feedback provides conviction and data-backed confidence for decision-making.
Average reps focus on product features. Top performers are "product agnostic"—they don't care about the specific product they're selling. Instead, they focus entirely on the customer's desired outcome. This allows them to craft bespoke solutions that deliver real value, leading to deeper trust and larger deals.
The sales focus is moving away from pushing a product in a single moment. Instead, the goal is to enable the buyer's decision-making process by providing clarity, confidence, and alignment. A customer will not buy until they are confident, and salespeople must facilitate that confidence rather than just pitching features.
Don't force your sales team to learn and sell a completely new product. Instead, integrate the new capability into an existing, successful product, making it "first" or "default" for that channel. This reduces sales friction and complexity, leveraging established momentum for adoption.
The only reliable way to understand a customer is to "forward deploy"—work alongside them in their actual environment. This direct experience of their job closes the context gap that interviews can't bridge, revealing unspoken needs and frustrations.
A sales pitch fails when it doesn't align with the buyer's subjective worldview. For example, a C-level executive's philosophical framework is vastly different from a frontline manager's. The key is to map your solution onto their current story, not force a new one.
Instead of backing away when a customer is undergoing an M&A, lean into it. Frame your product or service as a tool to boost performance and profit, making them a more valuable entity during the transition. While competitors retreat from the perceived disruption, you can become an essential partner, leaving the path wide open.
Shift the first meeting's goal from gathering information ("discovery") to providing tangible value ("consultation"). Prospects agree to meetings when they expect to learn something useful for their role or company, just as patients expect insights from a doctor.