They can’t ask for what they don’t know exists
Are you giving your customers what they’re asking for, or are you challenging their assumptions with results and experiences that they couldn’t have imagined? One way to differentiate yourself is to show customers things they haven’t asked for, which to them are new and unique, even if you’ve done them before. I mention a book – The Challenger Sale – and there’s a link to it below.
Listen to this new 6-minute episode for ideas on how to use this concept to close more sales.
Here’s a link to the book: https://amzn.to/3wk6GPk
Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:
- Apple Podcast:
- YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8
- Stitcher:
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Below is a full transcript. If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at [email protected] or contact me via text, use the short form on this page, or call 732.422.6362
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– They can’t ask for what they don’t know exists. Listen to this episode. Find out what I’m talking about. Hi, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions Podcast. People can’t ask for things they don’t know exist. Now I know that’s a statement of fact, but think about that. Your customers come to you asking for things that they know are possible. Now, maybe occasionally somebody says, “Hey, I’ve never heard this.” “Never seen this, but I had this idea.” “Could you do this?” And that would be great, right? Because they’re coming to you thinking you’re the one that can do that, that can accomplish that. But most of the time people are coming to you because they’ve seen something, heard something, read something, watched something, experienced something, and they’re asking you to do that.
One of the things that Apple was so good at and so many other companies in history have been good at, is showing us something we didn’t know existed. And then we decide whether or not that’s a value for us. So if you want to go back into history, way, way back into history. You know, before there were telephones, people didn’t know that that was a possibility. They couldn’t imagine what that was. It took Alexander Graham Bell and other people like that to come up with this idea. Before that what was there? There was the Pony Express, then there was the teletype and the telegraph, right? The idea of speaking. There you go. Video phones. Video phones have been tried, you know, in history but the bandwidth wasn’t necessarily there, the resolution wasn’t there, and you both had to have certain technologies. Now, we take for granted that we can Zoom, or we can Google Meet, right? Skype was more of an innovator on that. And I don’t know anybody that Skype’s anymore. Right? So just having that technology doesn’t mean that’s going to last forever.
So think about it with your customers. Your job is to show them results that they don’t even know are possible. There’s a book called, “The Challenger Sale,” and one of my clients had me read this one. And it was interesting because he was having me come for sales training and he said, “I want you to read this book and I want you to teach my people this.” I said, “Great. You know, What’s it about?” He goes, “I haven’t read it. But I heard it was really good.” I said, “Okay.” So I’m going to do that. And shout out to Bill Hansen in Florida. Bill Hansen Luxury Catering. That’s what he had me do before I came in for training there. The idea of The Challenger Sale is to challenge your customers on the results that they’re asking for by showing them results they couldn’t even imagined. That they didn’t ask for because they don’t know to ask for because they don’t even know it’s possible. If they want those results, they have to get them from you. Now, this doesn’t mean results that you’ve never done before because you might have done it for another customer but this customer doesn’t know that they’re possible, doesn’t know it exists.
So you don’t always have to reinvent the wheel. It could be coming up with showing this customer, “Hey, you’re asking for this, but from what you’ve told me, what about if we did this?” And again, it could have been something you’ve done once before, twice before, a hundred times before, but they don’t know to ask for it because they don’t know it exists. Especially when it comes to weddings and events, especially social events because they’ve probably never done anything like this before. With a corporate event, the whole concept of The Challenger Sale is, somebody might fill out an RFP, a request for proposal, and say, “Here’s what we want for our next corporate event, or our fundraising event, or our school event, or whatever it is.” And you might decide not to go back with a proposal because the cheaper price might win. And you don’t want to be the cheaper price. You want to be the better results. But they’re asking for certain things because this is this bullet point list of this is what we need, these are the things that we want. And a lot of companies can fulfill that.
So, why you? If that’s what they want. And what The Challenger Sale says is, maybe you go back to that person. And you say, “Hey, thanks. I just want you to know we’re not going to be sending a proposal based upon that RFP. But I do have some ideas that I would love to talk to you about. I do have some ideas that you didn’t put down on there that I think could make your event even better. And if you’d like to hear them I’d love to share those with you.” And if they want to hear those ideas, then you have their ear, which you don’t have on our RFP, because you’re just sending a proposal based upon what they put down. Now you’re saying, “Hey, I have some ideas that you haven’t even asked about, you didn’t even think about that I think could make your event better.”
So,think about when you’re talking to a customer. Are you just giving them back what they’re asking for? Or you’re proposing things to them that they haven’t asked for that they couldn’t even imagine. And now if they want those results, they have to get them from you because nobody else is talking about that. Nobody else is proposing those results because that’s what we’re selling is results, results and experiences. We’re not selling products and services. Those are the means to the end and the end that they want is the results and experiences. So are you just spitting back to them what they’re asking for? Or are you proposing things they haven’t even thought of, haven’t even heard of, have never seen, even if you’ve done ’em before, but if they’ve never heard ’em or seen them, they want those results. They have to get them from you. So think about that next time you’re talking to customers. Listen to what they’re asking for. Propose something they haven’t asked for. And if they want that, they have to get it from you, and they have to pay your price. Thanks for listening.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:
- Apple Podcast:
- YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8
- Stitcher:
- Google Podcast:
- iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/31C9Mic
- Pandora:
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