How to find the potential needs of customers?

Background This case happened when I was working in a consulting company before, and I still feel sorry when I recall it. Enterprise A is a company located in a remote town in Jiangsu with a long history and assets of over 100 million. Before my first visit, they met the bosses of at least six consulting companies, including the boss of my previous company, and they were not satisfied. At that time, I had just passed the interview with my boss and had not officially reported for duty. The boss asked me to see the marshal of enterprise A and told me that this was a case in which the other party asked us to design equity incentives without giving me pressure. Place of payment: a city teahouse. Sitting opposite the rumbled handsome, serious revealed a trace of anxiety. After introducing my understanding of enterprise management, I said bluntly, "President B, we won't discuss the project proposal. Please tell me the problem you are facing. If I can't answer, let's call it a day. " Principal b is also very polite. Very specific problems were raised, and I immediately put forward solutions one by one. My previous experience as a marketing director was very helpful. But vaguely know that these are not the main problems. To be sure, he needs a smooth transition. I took a deep breath and said to President B, "To change, we must first find out and stabilize some key points and people who can't move. Then we can talk about change. " President B was deeply touched by this: "You are the most stable consultant I have ever seen." Back in Shanghai, I'm going to relax for a week before reporting for duty. The boss called me: report as soon as possible, and the other party asked to sign the contract. Diagnosis: I led the project team members to work in enterprise A: one-on-one interview. Six days later, in my hotel room, I reported our diagnosis to Jong: four main problems. After the report, he was silent for a while, and his face turned from white to red: "I still don't know for so many years. How can you find the problem in just six days? " ..... "I quietly watched him say that finish excitedly and slammed the door. The next day is the annual marketing planning meeting. Let me introduce the main points of the annual plan first. After listening to the speech for ten minutes, it's still an old question. I just had a high fever that day and closed my eyes. Go back to the hotel in the evening and go out to buy medicine after dinner. When the mobile phone rang, Director Z, who was in charge of contact, called and said that the boss asked his representative to apologize to me. My questions were all right. Then he asked me if I was in the hotel. The boss was waiting for me in the lobby. After a long talk, Jong expressed his deep anxiety: he didn't help to shake his confidence in the company's sales backbone. After the talk, I immediately called my boss: because the project is directly related to sales and needs to extend the diagnosis time, I will stay for 20 days in person. In-depth analysis of customer's internal factors in the diagnosis report: 1. The backbone of the company does not recognize Shao Shuai's ability and performance since he took office. This is the main reason why they decided to leave. 2. There are differences between personal goals and organizational goals, which causes the boss to be anxious and the employees to wait and see. As the company's goal, it is still far from listing, and there are new product promotion and sales targets in 2004. If it is successfully realized, the company will take a big step. However, these are not obviously related to the personal goals (income, occupation) of employees. Some bottom-level employees think that the company's profits are relatively rich, and they get too little compared with their peers; I still stay in the company, because there is no pressure at work and it is easier. Middle-level employees have hope for the development of the company and expect the company to make a commitment to their future. 3. There is no difference in performance appraisal, there is no comparability between regions and individuals, and subjective and objective factors in appraisal are confused, which basically has no incentive effect. Not according to the characteristics of marketing work, the right, responsibility and benefit are allocated in place. Performance appraisal only seeks balance, which is actually egalitarianism. Focus only on stability, not on motivation and development. Without defining and eliminating the changes of objective factors involved in the assessment, the assessment can not reflect the rewards and punishments for subjective behavior, and it is also invalid. Due to the characteristics of industries and regions, it is an objective factor that talents are hard to recruit and stay. However, the ability of the company's existing talents is not tapped enough, and the authorization is not enough, and it is not concentrated in a certain range to play a fist role. Sales itself has the characteristics of very high elimination rate, and it is very rare to become a competent salesman. Similarly, there are few qualified product experts. To give full play to the existing talent ability of enterprises, there must be overall planning. Due to the absence of marketing director, this function is missing. On the other hand, there is not enough authorization (pricing) for the manager in charge of the region, which makes the sales correspondence unplanned and does not provide a platform for training the manager's market planning ability. This also affects the stability of talents. After 20 days, I have a bottom in my heart: first, equity incentives can't meet the needs of customers (customers don't realize it). Because the sales backbone is dissatisfied with the above ability, not the treatment. Second, what is needed here is sales incentive consultation. When it comes to performance, the team will be very stable. At the same time, I have planned the sales incentive plan, and communicated with the backbone, and gained the knowledge of * * *. Change the psychological structure: First of all, I began to publicize the incentive scheme I expected in the project diagnosis, which was approved by two district managers in six districts and agreed to pilot two different schemes. Secondly, we give the design method of performance appraisal, so that regional managers can design their own performance appraisal scheme. The result attracted a lot of complaints: there is no time, what do we want you to do? Wait a minute. I am firm: if you don't stay up until 4-5 am like us, it means you have time. If we do everything well, can you understand and carry it out? Do you need to consult the company again when you want to make changes after we leave? In view of the current situation that the annual sales plan can't go down and the sales staff's incentives are not in place, I propose the following scheme: 1. For the regional manager (one person) who is willing to accept the company's annual sales target, bind the target with the right to use the budget. And the implementation of monthly inspection and deviation analysis, decentralization in place at the same time control the use of the budget. 2. For regional managers who are unwilling to accept the company's annual sales target, break up the n regions of subordinate salesmen and re-divide them into N- 1 regions. Then n salesmen bid for the N- 1 area. Finally, those who didn't win the bid were waiting for the post. Similarly, each salesperson holds a sales plan and checks it once a month. No, come down, on the top of the waiting station. Mistakes According to the standard process of the consulting company at that time, I, who was mainly responsible for visiting customers, communicated my proposal with the proposal writing consultant twice to let him know my thoughts. It took more than a month to write the plan, and the writing consultant gave it to the client without showing it to my project leader (I showed it to my boss many times). Finally, the scheme is written as a three-tier and four-level performance appraisal scheme, which has nothing to do with my original idea. The first reaction of customers is not understanding. At that time, I was on a business trip with my boss, who quickly asked me to go to the customer for first aid. At the same time, let another colleague rewrite the plan according to my original idea. When I arrived at the client, the author of the original plan was triumphantly coming out of President B's office. No problem, the customer understands. The boss said, don't talk in this project from now on. I am in charge of this project now. A few days later, I left this consulting company. The news is that the final payment of this project has not been recovered, and the customer still doesn't understand how to operate it, so he is not satisfied. Summary 1. Sometimes the consulting needs put forward by customers are not real needs. As a professional, you should have the ability to discover the potential needs of customers. And have the courage and courage to correct the wrong ideas of customers. Management consulting is also an art Second, the personal ability of excellent consultants far exceeds that of an unqualified team. Two heads are better than one. The consulting industry exaggerates the role of teams. First, in order to set up company barriers and prevent consultants from going it alone; The second is the commercial purpose of raising fees. Third, most of the consulting needs put forward by customers are inseparable from human problems. Planning is never the most important thing. What is important is how to change the psychological structure of the parties and implement the plan. So change management consulting is very important. In the annual survey of "American Management Consulting in 2003", 40% people predicted that the consulting demand would shift from strategic consulting to project implementation consulting, in other words, from consulting services to consulting services to help companies decide what to do to implement the work they decided to do. "The final result of this survey is not completely unexpected, because the most basic thing is often overlooked: the key to successfully consulting a project is actually a major reason. Only by giving full play to people's ability in the project implementation stage can we achieve the expected goal. Two years later, I set up my own consulting company focusing on change management: Shanghai Qiushi Management Consulting Co., Ltd.