You’ve just finished your brilliant twenty-minute presentation on your new open agent harness, but the customer’s only question at the end is: “What are you hearing about power availability in Northern Virginia?”
What? You may be thinking, “Was this customer paying attention to anything I said? What’s with this orthogonal question?”
But maybe this is the customer’s thought process: ‘I want to deploy this. But it runs against our own inference cluster, and we’re already power-capped. If I move the workload, that’s a re-platforming project I have no headcount to staff. Before I take that fight to my SVP, I need to know whether the power constraint is easing. Maybe these guys have visibility I don’t.’
Your customer’s question is a pointer toward his real obstacles.
Try this: “That’s a huge question, Ted. I’m not our expert on grid capacity, but I’ll ping my colleague who tracks it. While she’s on her way over, I’d love to hear your thoughts and concerns on this issue.”
If you’re respectful and patient in the way you engage with his question, your customer will likely tell you what he’s thinking. Then you’ll know exactly where you stand on the sale and how best to help Ted in his business.
Questions are just as enlightening when they come from your team, from a podcaster, from an analyst. Treat them for the signals that they are and you’ll become a much better communicator!
Take the risk out of being in the spotlight! I can prepare you, your teams and your leaders to tell your company’s story with confidence, shape the industry and maybe even change the world.
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