Love it Mark Phinick - very comprehensive guide for anyone willing to put the work in on BEHALF of the client! Joseph Shuster when he joined our little group called it "identifying the Latent Need" .... thing is to do this, you have to put the work in because it's not visible nor obvious, until it is :-) So this is where I always struggled because as a GTM leader, the management style I always ran was one where we could quickly understand our numbers, but instead of a cadence call with reps, we would spend time workshopping your topics about our clients prospects (which in cadence calls, no one is interested in). Great sales leaders do both and celebrate the latter the most. Second, question for you - I've always hated "sales plays" - they felt artificial, total bulls*$t, and just a way for ops people to look good or bad on a report. It's having a hammer looking for nails. Your approach and the "Latent Need" approach we used mean you apply your platform contextually to the client problem. Lazy organizations use "sales plays" - real ones have a platform strategy they can apply. Keep the posts coming - just love them.
Most sellers talk about value. Top performers create it by helping buyers quantify friction they’ve accepted as “just how things work.” Snowflake and ServiceNow didn’t scale because of pitch decks or feature lists. They grew because their reps helped buyers put real numbers on delays that were already costing them money. And that part is repeatable. Here’s the practical playbook: 1. Surface friction the buyer hasn’t questioned Snowflake reps didn’t tell buyers they had a data problem. They asked why teams waited days for access, or why analytics stalled waiting on engineering. ServiceNow reps did the same with workflow bottlenecks. Your move: • What routinely takes longer than it should? • Where does work wait on another team? • When decisions lag, what downstream impact shows up? 2. Translate that friction into time Both companies made time the first metric. Because buyers already know how to value time. Ask: • How long does this take today? • How often does it happen? • What would move faster if this bottleneck disappeared? 3. Convert time into money using their lens This is where deals get funded - tying delay to the buyer’s world, not yours. • Does the lag push revenue or customer milestones? • Does it create rework, overtime, or duplicate effort? • Does it introduce compliance, outage, or brand risk? Now you’re working with numbers they already defend internally. 4. Sell the acceleration, not the tool Snowflake didn’t lead with architecture. ServiceNow didn’t lead with workflow diagrams. They led with: “What happens economically when this process moves faster?” Your message should do the same. 5. Equip the buyer to navigate their internal path—don’t run it for them Strong sellers don’t bulldoze org charts. They help buyers get ahead of predictable questions: • Who feels the friction most? • Who owns the budget impact? • Who will be asked to validate the case? You’re not diagnosing their organization. You’re helping them tell a cleaner, faster story internally. Great sellers don’t manufacture urgency. They reveal the cost of the pace their buyers are already operating at. And once that cost is visible, the business case builds itself.
Appreciate that, Gary. I’m 100% with - “latent need” is exactly it. The friction’s always there, just invisible until someone helps the buyer quantify it in their own language. I’m with you on “sales plays” too. The copy-paste versions kill authenticity. The real leverage is applying your platform to a problem the client already wants solved. That’s what makes a strategy repeatable without feeling robotic. And you’re spot-on about leadership - pipeline health comes from teams who understand client reality as much as dashboards. Once that friction’s visible, urgency takes care of itself. It’s rare to see leaders still make time for that kind of client-centric work.