I think there’s a positioning problem that’s easy to miss if most of your customer research happens before the sale. During the sales process, you hear what someone hopes to get. Once you’re doing the work, you find out what actually makes the relationship valuable to them. Those can be pretty different things. Take an agency, for example. A client might buy because they want more leads. Six months later, they might value the fact that someone finally owns the process and they don’t have to spend every Monday chasing updates. The leads still matter, but the relief of having that handled could be a bigger part of the renewal decision than the agency realizes. Meanwhile, the website still says exactly what it said six months ago, because the people writing it weren’t part of those conversations. What interests me is deciding how much that should change the pitch. The thing that makes an existing customer stay might be your strongest selling point. It could also be something a prospect won’t appreciate until they’ve worked with you. Leading with it too early might actually make the offer harder to sell. I’d want to compare what customers said they wanted on the first call with how they describe the value when they renew. Especially the language they use without being prompted. For anyone who’s had customers long enough to see that difference: what did they end up valuing that surprised you? And did putting it into your sales pitch help win new business, or was it mostly a reason existing customers stayed?   submitted by   /u/grady-teske [link]   [comments]