Badanie potrzeb klientów - to ograniczenie - najlepsze transakcje przebiegają inaczej.

Listen, something incredible happened. This is incredible. Książ made a pizza. Książo made a pizza. Not one, but two. And it sold to Żabka. Either it didn't sell, or it did. This pizza is good, or it's not good. It's fatty, or it's not fatty. It's healthy or unhealthy, or it's anyone's guess. All of Poland is talking about nothing else but Książ made a pizza. Książ made a pizza. That's why I'm recording a podcast today, in which there won't be a single word about Książ and his pizza. Spielberg, the intro. Kalski, specifically, about negotiations.

And with this most important news, I started today's podcast, in which, as promised, there won't be a single word about Książ. Oh, well. Needs assessment is unnecessary. This will be a podcast about B2B, business-to-business sales. I've been saying this many times for years that needs assessment is unnecessary, needs research is unnecessary, and there are people out there who argue and quarrel with this. Sure, it's a bit of a mouthful. Yes, needs analysis is unnecessary. That doesn't mean you don't need to know what people need and what you can offer them. Traditional needs analysis is simply limiting. And I'll explain this briefly again somewhere, probably again with a few interesting examples. Partly because I recently argued with an expert, one of them simply an expert, who claimed that needs analysis is necessary, is the most important thing, and that nothing can be achieved without needs analysis.

Okay, listen, in B2B, you sell business to business. You have two types of transactions—I’d divide them into two types—customer acquisition or prospecting, whatever that means, because I don't use those terms and I don't recommend it to you either. The first thing is: I have contacts, I establish contacts, I'm talking about new ones, we acquire new ones, right?

Um, the customer needs something, they'll say something, write something, announce something somewhere, do something. So, let's get started. And this is a situation where, well, there's some inquiry, some need, customers have articulated externally.

But one thing's certain: you're going to that company, trying to establish contacts and offer something, and others are too, because that need is articulated, so others know it too. He just sent an inquiry to five people, and that's it. And the race is on.

That's the first version. The second version is that you're talking to some company, how did you make contact without that first element, that the company itself invited you to a meeting. And now you're doing a needs analysis.

Yes, you can do a needs analysis. There are philosophers who say that pain, pain, pain, you have to look for pain. And that's great. Very good. But I'll ask one question that turns this whole philosophy upside down. What if, during a needs analysis, it turns out they don't have any needs? They don't. Everything's fine. So what now? Well, I mean, I'll wait patiently until those needs come back someday, that it's nonsense. There are no transactions, so this wouldn't have happened at all. My best deals come out this way. A conversation with a client about their needs. Of course, you have to talk, you have to know how to open up to people, you have to allow them to open up to you, that is, ask questions skillfully and listen to what they're saying, but not in the sense that the client will say, "I need this, so you give it to me." The information I hear from the client is precisely what I can process and deduce what I can offer them, if anything at all. And if I do, what then? There's a saying I often quote: a professional salesperson knows what people need and sells it as what they want, not what they need. 50%—I don't know, maybe more. I speak from personal experience. And I have, I have, and I have extensive sales experience, especially in B2B, both my own and with the people we work with in the B2B industry. I've picked up on this...

And what you're about to hear is a starting point for what they can and could have for a salesperson. For a salesperson, not for someone who simply sells something when someone needs something. Okay, but I touched on the topic here: what if a customer doesn't need anything and has to have it, doesn't have it, well... As I was analyzing it while preparing for this podcast, you know what, of all the contracts—I don't remember, we had about 30, I think I reached 30, and I employed 500 people, not to brag—I didn't have a single contract, not a damn half of one, that was created because someone needed something, and we sold it, and they went. I mean, I mostly sold there myself; the salesperson just set up appointments for me. All I had at that company, all those contracts that existed, I didn't wait for someone to need something. So why do I need that? I identified the companies I wanted to work with, and we just went there. That kind of thinking only means one thing in B2B. If I, say, come up with this idea with cleaning services, right? Office cleaning, for example, that's how I did it, and companies too. Well, one thing is certain: If by some miracle I manage to get in there and convince them to use me, right? Well, that means the company that's there is going out. It's like football. If one team scores, the other team concedes. It's a zero-sum game.

And you have to know that. You have to know that. If you're a provider of, I don't know, logistics services, and you want to join a company, the other one is going out. So focusing on the needs of the company to consider logistics services, if you focus solely on that, then you're basically, you know, 50, even at that point, you know what it takes to make it happen. Why? Because even if you have a decent offer, with a reasonably good—well, good—price and terms and conditions, and other things, there's another mechanism that's very strong among the people you talk to and very difficult to overcome.

It's those damn relationships of habit with your current supplier. If your current supplier isn't screwing up, isn't blowing things out of proportion, is doing okay, there aren't any scandals, then they have a relationship, they're used to each other, they send out postcards, and you come in with a slightly cheaper offer. And if you don't consider that these mechanisms are being broken, that someone else needs to be fired, it's difficult for people because they have a relationship with them. That woman you're talking to, if she wants to buy cardboard packaging from you for production, well, where I buy now, they'll either cut their price in half or they'll be fired. So, if you're only slightly different from someone, it's not a reason for them to change suppliers. Okay, but that's beside the point. Let's get back to my example. I certainly didn't wait for any needs, and I'll give you a quick, simple example of such a contract, which, well, well, a very well-known company today, also had an office building of 4,000 square meters, and of course, there was some company there, because the office building existed, so they operated there. There was a contract, and someone was cleaning there, about 30 people worked there, and they provided some services. I had one goal in mind: because they didn't need a new company, they weren't even looking. I had one goal: Is this company doing this well? Is it good enough for the client who pays them? I knew what kind of company it was, and I knew they couldn't do it well. I mean, optimally, yes. I knew they were going for the lowest cost, so they couldn't provide the best possible service, only the optimal one. But they were there, they were working, and there were no scandals. Now, how do you start such a conversation? If we reached the head of administration through some specific means, some—I don't know what it was—some woman who was in charge of the director, the one who handled it, well, if I even started asking about needs, she'd hear it, right? I will. Well, not at the moment, but you know, when we're here in the future,

But one thing's certain: you're going to that company, trying to establish contacts and offer something, and others are too, because that need is articulated, so others know it too. He just sent an inquiry to five people, and that's it. And the race is on.

That's the first version. The second version is that you're talking to some company, how did you make contact without that first element, that the company itself invited you to a meeting . And now you're doing a needs analysis

. Yes, you can do a needs analysis. There are philosophers who say that pain, pain, pain, you have to look for pain. And that's great. Very good. But I'll ask one question that turns this whole philosophy upside down. What if,

during a needs analysis, it turns out they don't have any needs? They don't. Everything's fine. So what now? Well, I mean, I'll wait patiently until those needs come back someday, that it's nonsense. There are no transactions, so this wouldn't have happened at all. My

best deals come out this way. A conversation with a client about their needs. Of course, you have to talk, you have to know how to open up to people, you have to allow them to open up to you, that is, ask questions skillfully

and listen to what they're saying, but not in the sense that the client will say, "I need this, so you give it to me ." The information I hear from the client is precisely what I can process and deduce what I can offer them, if

anything at all. And if I do, what then ? There's a saying I often quote: a professional salesperson knows what people need and sells it as what they want, not what they need. 50%—I don't know, maybe more. I speak from personal

experience. And I have, I have, and I have extensive sales experience, especially in B2B, both my own and with the people we work with in the B2B industry. I've picked up on this, ...

And what you're about to hear is a starting point for what they can and could have for a salesperson. For a salesperson, not for someone who simply sells something when someone needs something. Okay, but I touched on the

topic here: what if a customer doesn't need anything and has to have it, doesn't have it, well...As I was analyzing it while preparing for this podcast, you know what, of all the contracts—I don't remember, we had about 30, I think I reached 30, and I

employed 500 people, not to brag—I didn't have a single contract, not a damn half of one, that was created because someone needed something, and we sold it, and they went. I mean, I mostly sold there myself; the salesperson just set up appointments

for me. All I had at that company, all those contracts that existed, I didn't wait for someone to need something. So why do I need that? I identified the companies I wanted to work with, and we just went there. That kind of thinking

only means one thing in B2B. If I, say, come up with this idea with cleaning services, right? Office cleaning, for example, that's how I did it, and companies too. Well, one thing is certain: If by some miracle I manage to

get in there and convince them to use me, right? Well, that means the company that's there is going out. It's like football. If one team scores, the other team concedes. It's a zero-sum game.

And you have to know that. You have to know that. If you're a provider of, I don't know, logistics services, and you want to join a company, the other one is going out. So focusing on the needs of the company to consider logistics

services, if you focus solely on that, then you're basically, you know, 50, even at that point, you know what it takes to make it happen. Why? Because even if you have a decent offer, with a reasonably good—well, good—price

and terms and conditions, and other things, there's another mechanism that's very strong among the people you talk to and very difficult to overcome.

It's those damn relationships of habit with your current supplier. If your current supplier isn't screwing up, isn't blowing things out of proportion, is doing okay, there aren't any scandals, then they have a relationship , they're used to each other, they send

out postcards, and you come in with a slightly cheaper offer. And if you don't consider that these mechanisms are being broken, that someone else needs to be fired, it's difficult for people because they have a relationship with them. That woman you're talking to

, if she wants to buy cardboard packaging from you for production, well , where I buy now, they'll either cut their price in half or they'll be fired . So, if you're only slightly different from someone, it's not a reason for

them to change suppliers. Okay, but that's beside the point. Let's get back to my example. I certainly didn't wait for any needs, and I'll give you a quick, simple example of such a contract, which, well, well, a very

well-known company today, also had an office building of 4,000 square meters, and of course, there was some company there, because the office building existed, so they operated there. There was a contract, and someone was cleaning there, about 30 people worked

there, and they provided some services. I had one goal in mind: because they didn't need a new company, they weren't even looking. I had one goal: Is this company doing this well? Is it good enough for the client who pays them? I

knew what kind of company it was, and I knew they couldn't do it well. I mean, optimally, yes. I knew they were going for the lowest cost, so they couldn't provide the best possible service, only the optimal one. But they were there,

they were working, and there were no scandals. Now, how do you start such a conversation? If we reached the head of administration through some specific means, some—I don't know what it was —some woman who was in charge of the

director, the one who handled it, well, if I even started asking about needs, she'd hear it, right? I will. Well, not at the moment, but you know, when we're here in the future, you'll leave it.

And that's it. And you're bouncing off the wall. You can bounce off 15 walls like a ping-pong ball anyway. That's why I didn't ask about any needs at all , no needs assessment, I didn't do anything. We arrived there, and the

first solution to this problem was already at the reception desk, which was prestigious, well-made. Granite, marble, which was in a moderately clean state, let's put it this way. And when we started talking to this woman, this woman, I asked how they liked it all

here, what it looked like. They have beautiful granite. Would you like to see what this granite and marble look like on a daily basis? We'll simply come for free, give you a demonstration , and show you how to maintain it, so

it looks the same as it did at the beginning. Because, of course, it was nice at first, but then you get used to it being so drab. I'll show you, and when you show me this, I'll ask you one

question. You have coffee here, people drink it, those few thousand people working there, right? Do you have carpeting on the floors? Yes. They walk around with coffee mugs, right? They spill coffee. Yes. The carpet is often washed twice a year. I mean, a stain

spilled today will be completely removed in five months. Yes. Well, they're sticking to something. We've kind of gotten used to it. Thank you. I already have needs. Do you understand?

I don't analyze these needs; I predict what might be there and I just ask if it's true, if it's true, if it's true.

And I don't ask, because she won't tell me she needs anything. Of the hundreds of things this woman does, this one is just fine, it doesn't work, so we don't deal with it. I have 50,000 other things, and I won't find any pain in

her. If I wait for that pain to spill from her lips, you know, you can wait until you retire. And business is also a time when we fulfill contracts. So thank you. So we went in and showed this woman on Saturday. It was a risk,

but a limited, minimal risk, because this company is wealthy and prestigious , and once I got to know this woman, I saw that she was an intelligent, cool, and professional woman with a million things on her mind. So I'll just take

her off the one she doesn't even notice , that she could be better. And we did the show. Then it all went downhill with the coffee, with everything, and two months later, the cleaning company simply terminated her contract, and

that was it. I went in on my own terms, everyone was happy because I didn't conduct a needs assessment. We're interrupting the program. This is a special announcement. Dates for in-person negotiation and sales training have appeared. You can find

the current dates and information by clicking the link in the description of this video. Sometimes you just need to change two or three things in your sales process, and your results go up.

Okay, back to the material. Next, I'll tell you another example. I think this is also here once, but it was a long time ago, a client we worked with.

Pallet collars. So who even knows what those are? I didn't know either. Some kind of wooden collars. Well, there's a pallet. People are moving things on these pallets, but some of the products transported on them roll around or

something. I don't know what it's for. A pallet collar. It's like, you know, a Euro pallet, but 30 cm, or 40 cm, or even 50 cm. A pallet collar, something like that. You put it here, assemble it , and if you put something inside, it

won't fall out. It can be covered. Well , extensions. Well, it's a product that's really a byproduct of some sawmills, made from any kind of wood.

And this salesman would go around to companies and assess their needs. He'd ask if they needed anything. And that's it, a ping-pong ball. Not now, not now, not now, not now. You're a bother, don't bother. We have it. Go away. How

much do you charge? 12. And we buy it twice. So he drove around, lost miles, and that's it. So again, what needs am I supposed to create with an extension?

There are no needs, because there's some company, five sawmills, standing at their doorsteps and saying, "Ay, take it from me, and take it from me, and I'm 50 cents cheaper." And that's it. And this was a huge corporation, a

huge automotive company. A truly huge company. They were buying about 5,000 of these extensions a month. So we came up with a certain idea without asking if anyone had any needs. Why? If I start asking, it turns out they don't

have any. So why ask? Only we—I showed it here, I won't go into detail now—made three versions of this extension: a better one, a worse one, an average one, it doesn't matter. But the key was that we, as they say,

burned the company logo onto the extension, onto the rough wood. And then, well, they saw that these extensions could be marked with something like this. It was so cool, such a large logo, the company's name.

Because if they were shipping it somewhere to America, India, I don't know where, it would be great if their logo was on the extension. Yes, and that was the reason, and they wanted to get interested. And the salesman no

longer drove around, did not ask if there were any additional needs, because why would he? He just called to arrange a meeting, saying, "Sir, I wanted to show you something. I have these, I have these extensions. I'm not

asking if you need them, I want to show you because it's something unusual. If I show you, I'm curious if you'll say you don't need them. If you say I don't need them, I'll be gone for 10 minutes

and I don't know if I'm bothering you, but you should see them. I'll drive over, I have them on my truck, whichever day I can. Period." And that's it. He started selling, not asking about needs. We redesigned the

product a bit, but if he'd asked about needs, he never would have done it because he'd have been researching needs. Well, needs, research. The guy who sold it to me once, when I was managing director, came in and gave me

a presentation. He sold me logistics services; we had to ship spare parts there. We did a lot of shipping. Well, damn, he came in and we didn't even talk to me about any of my needs. A professional salesman, a great

professional salesman. He didn't even discuss any needs with me; he just took a flip chart and drew the area where we ship, because that's where he knew. And then he told me what would happen if we made 70-80%of your shipments today go

to customers tomorrow, and about 20 to 30, 20 would be delivered within 48 hours, because you probably have the vast majority within 48 hours now, and 70-80%would be delivered the next day.

How would that impact your business? Wouldn't that be beneficial? Because if so, I'll show you how we can do it. End of story. He wasn't talking about courier services, he was talking about my business. Well, hello, because he's

a professional salesman, not a salesperson or a salesperson. And one last example of such a girl, a real estate agent. I'll tell you one simple story. A girl from a reliable company that was building a factory nearby.

Never mind. I don't want to say, because that's the name of the company. It's a certain brand, and you can associate it. And why? Well, it's a large factory, and they were building it there, and they needed six or seven

apartments, so that employees, managers , building inspectors, someone—I don't know who—would find two-bedroom apartments close to this town, and it appeared on some portals. And there was a request, a request from the company, to send offers, to let anyone who had

an apartment apply. They needed six, they advertised, saying there were such needs. So you know what happens?

They're getting 50 emails and calls saying someone has an apartment there. And this certain agent, when she saw it , went to their place, got in, climbed in through the chimney, through the window—never mind how clever she is,

and simply sat down with those HR girls , because that's what HR girls do. HR girls rent apartments; they have to make decisions, hello. They don't know anything about it, right? And they have to talk to some agents who come there

and call them and send them offers. Yes . And this girl came, and basically the conversation consisted of her telling them, "Ladies, I came here specifically to see you, because if you have six, you want to get this done quickly,

right?" Yes. You probably want to talk to one person, not 15, because there's also the issue of the apartment transfer protocol, which made it difficult: "I'll take care of everything and deliver everything to one place, you'll just talk to me. I'll

do it for you." Do you want it? Yes. Well, more or less. Yes. I wasn't a witness, she just told me. And you know what? A weight was lifted from their heads. From their hearts, sorry, you could hear a roar. Because that was the

weight lifted, because they, damn it, a reliable person took the time, came, came in, and said, "I'll do it for you.

You'll have six, and you'll only talk to me." I'll prepare handover reports for everything, we'll standardize it, I'll handle it, no problem. This is our third or fourth year working together, because she rented those six apartments , and of course, the leases ended there

, but now it's another one, another one . This company also wanted to rent a house there. Period. Did she conduct a needs assessment? No, she knew they wanted to rent three apartments. Well, that's the declared need. But she went

to them and actually sold them something completely different, not apartments. She said, "I am the product ," because she's a professional salesperson, not a salesperson or a salesperson. Listen, I call it a salesperson, a salesperson, because that's often the case. But sales skills

and people who do sales...well, everyone has their own level of sales skills. I once described it that way at a large company, and then they took it from me and even created such classifications among their staff. I say, "Yes, there's a salesperson, a

person who sells, but they have little influence on sales. They serve those customers who come in and say," This is what I want. "So, you have to give it.

They're a salesperson. A salesperson. They're a person who already sells. They influence sales, but they have customers. They come to them, they analyze needs, and once they analyze those needs, they'll sell to them. If there are no needs, they won't sell.

And yes, but they don't have to look for customers. But it's only such a person who influences sales. Yes. And the third competency, the third level of competency, is the salesperson who has nothing, no customers, nothing.

They have to invent everything themselves, create everything. So, these examples I'm talking about are the level of sales competency. I said it several times on purpose, because this is a professional salesperson, because this is a professional...Yes, because that's what a professional

salesperson does. A professional salesperson understands that needs assessment is unnecessary. You have to know what people need and sell it as exactly what they want. Needs analysis is unnecessary. Oh well. And that's all for this material. But I'll say one

more thing related to B2B, because it's very important. Recently, at a company like this, we were developing a B2B sales process and we worked hard on it.

This might be interesting, interesting for people who sell B2B, because it's not like selling a product or service to B2B, you need to know just one thing . Look, every company has a lot of costs, whether small or large, buys

something and divides it up. I once divided it up like this, and it works.

It worked, it helped me, and it helps others. I mean, imagine this situation. Every company you plan to approach, no matter what you sell, but in B2B, I divided it up like this: they have strategic needs, meaning they buy

certain products or services, spend money, but that's one thing; they can't live without it. It has to be there; it's strategic needs. That's one element. The second element is the things that services, products, and companies buy. It's not strategic, but

it's necessary. You know, for example, a complex manufacturer who makes lubricants must have cleaning cloths, three-layer specialized cleaning cloths , deployed throughout the production line. Because if there aren't any, there will be problems. It has to be some kind of thing, yes, but it's not

strategic. It has to be there, but it's not strategic. And the third element is a whole bunch of trifles and.

Period. And now you need to know: if you're selling something to B2B, is it in the" trifles and "category?

It has to be in the middle version, but not strategic, or strategic parts? Because it will work differently, you'll be talking to different people and have different processes. You can handle the trifles and at a lower level, you know, you can get

there easily with someone, but that also has its specifics, it might even be faster. That middle element will be more difficult, and you'll have to talk to other people, and if you're selling something that's strategic for a given

company, well, then don't talk to managers, because they don't make strategic decisions. You have to aim higher. You need to know what your product does and which category to place it in with the customer, because it's not like your product and your

service will always be perceived the same way. For example, in one company, logistics services will be a strategic element. If you sell logistics or transport services, then you have to understand that this is a strategic element in that company. Why? Because

if it's a manufacturer who does something for others and sells it, but the components they produce are in a just-in-time supply chain or whatever, it's a day's delay, sometimes a five-hour delay, an hour's delay in delivering a specific batch to Madrid.

I'm thinking of a company right now where they're supposed to be in Madrid by 8:45, they have a notification for the ramp. If it's not there, it's a scandal. So, when you sell logistics services to this type of company, you

know you're in that place. It's a strategic element, and the conversations and processes are different. But if another manufacturing company doesn't have such customers, and they can transport goods by truck —whether it's on Wednesday or Thursday, nothing happens there, or

even next week—well, that's not a strategic element for them. It's somewhere in the middle: important, necessary, because we have to deliver, but not strategic. So if you sold logistics services to B2B, sometimes it'll be like this, sometimes it'll be

like that, and someone else will say," I ship a truck once a month, and I don't care who I ship it with. "So, it might be in the" jokes and nonsense " category. And you're still selling the same logistics services, only they can

be perceived differently by different customers. And you need to know that. You need to know that, damn it, so that if what you're selling is strategic for a given company, you don't waste time and waste nonsense talking to some

low-level, low-level people, because it's certain that those low-level people won't make a decision and will just move on. I have to get there. But that's a topic for training, for consulting, not on YouTube, where I'm here talking about stories like this,

while everyone on the sidelines is talking about the priest, about the Prince's sensationalism that he made pizza, made pizza, and it's in Żaba.

But Pilberg already ate that pizza and says it's good. Well, someone ate it, someone else said it wasn't good. So now is that pizza good or not? That priest betrayed, sold out, or didn't sell out. Holy. The world has

stopped. Książ made pizza. Holy cow. Good. Needs research is unnecessary. A professional salesperson knows what people need and sells it as exactly what they want, what they desire.

Create, because if you research in B2B, in 50%of cases you'll find out they don't need anything. So what now?

You'll go to your boss and say," Well, they don't need anything, so I'll drive , but nobody needs anything here. "Yes, that's not what working in retail is about, not that. Hello. Well, enjoy your meal. Eat a greasy Pepa or a

pepperoni and talk, record those tubes. Good, bad. Good, bad. Sold, not sold. Hello.