I read this article  Nobody Wants to Learn to Program over on the Invent with Python Blog. It is a great post and spot on!  Sales could learn something from this post. The author is correct. Nobody wants to learn to program, they want to build a cool application.

Al Sweigart, the author, nailed it with this:

I frequently see a problem when people (especially techies) try to teach programming to someone (especially non-techies). Many programming tutorials begin with basic programming principles: variables, loops, data types. This is both an obvious way to teach programming and almost certainly a wrong way to teach programming. It’s wrong because nobody wants to learn how to program.

They don’t want to learn how to program just for the sake of programming. They don’t want to learn about algorithm complexity or implicit casting. They want to make Super Mario or Twitter or Angry Birds.

Ahhh! I loved reading this. It is sales in a nut shell, from a techie! People don’t want to learn to program, they want what programming gets them. They want to make a cool, fun app they can sell on ITunes or share with their friends.

In sales it is no different. Your customers and prospects don’t want your products. They don’t want an analytics platform. They don’t want a drill. They don’t want an accounting system. They don’t want lead generation software. Your customers want more clients, to beat the competition, to save money, to get better leads, to be more profitable, and holes (not the drill.)

Understanding the end game of your prospects and customers is the beginning of the sale. Just like this developer understands with people who are starting to program it’s about the end “game.” (pun unintended, but I’ll take it.) In both cases, selling or programming, it’s not the journey that is motivating the decision it’s the destination. Understanding the end game changes the approach. It changes how you teach someone to program and it changes how you sell. Most importantly, it increases the probability of success.

Know the destination, it’s the only way to get them there.

The Take Aways:

How well do you know your customers and prospects end game? What do they want to do?

What do you know about your customers motivation? Why do they want to do it?

How are you positioning your product or service to meet their end goal? Is your approach going to get them their?

Are you talking about variables, loops and data types or about Angry Birds, Mario Brothers and Twitter? Is what you are talking about, what they want to hear?