I Sucked At Challenging My Customer - Until I Discovered This Meme? (#19)
Communication Tactic for Holding Your Ground And Challenging Your Customer
Hey friend. This is NLCS. The tactical newsletter where we study the world's best writers, marketers, and psychological themes to extract frameworks to improve your communication efforts to level-up your customer interactions and career in less than 5 minutes a week.
Imagine this…
Last year, was supposed to be the year where you become a better Customer Success Manager
But your customers keep saying no to your ideas, disagreeing with any feedback you give them, and giving you the impression that they don't trust you.
Every conversation turns into a battle between the features of your product and those of your competitor.
And without a structured framework, your response feels something like this:
But this year - it’s going to be different.
You’re going to become more influential. You’re going to demonstrate your credibility. And you’re serious about it this time.
In today's edition of NLCS, we dissect a popular blog written by The Hustle titled "Can you get sued for using a meme?" to research the patterns the writer used and apply it to our day-to-day interactions with customers when we need to challenge their ideas.
Let’s get into it…
🔬 Let me set the stage
I sucked at pushing back, and challenging my customers’ ideas. Until I started applying the pattern I noticed in this blog.
I’m going to show how I did it.
So let’s set the stage.
Stage: You work as a customer success manager for a cyber security firm. Your customer is ignoring a critical factor for which your company has a solution and is deciding to go with a competitor who does not address their underlying issue.
How would you respond? What questions would you ask to challenge their idea?
FYI: I know nothing about cyber security, which is why I chose it. To demonstrate that if you study the patterns, you can apply this to your customer facing interactions.
🛠️ Let's analyze the author's use of the illuminating framework at the top of this article:
The photograph that is now known as the Success Kid meme (© Laney Griner)
🧠 How does this article help us challenge our customers? Read below to find out:
Prospect: Well, I mean, look they’re cheaper. I don’t know, we didn’t get into the details, but we like them so far.
You: Out of curiosity, I just have a quick question… [view the phrases in bold to ask an impactful question]
Ya boi / friend @ NLCS. That’s it for this week :)
Every week, I dedicate over 80 hours to learning or practicing effective communication techniques so that I can distill it all into a <5-minute read for you. Think of this newsletter as the friend you had in college who goes to all the lectures and takes detailed notes so you don't have to miss out on your fun while I do all the work.
I spend a lot of time making sure I write something that brings value to you.
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If you know any Customer Success professionals who could benefit from this level of transparency, I would love to bring them into our small circle of people who care about Customer Success. Please feel free to forward this article and others from the NLCS (New Laws of Customer Success) universe to grow our tight-knit community one person at a time.
