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6 Ways to Tell if Your Sales Team Understands Buyer Needs

Picture of Dorianne McKenzie

As a C-suite executive, do you ever wonder if your sales team truly understands your buyer's needs? In my sales experience, effective selling through customer needs drives results! 

Back in my Revlon and Coty days, I would find myself asking, is my sales team just delivering a pitch, or are they uncovering the deeper business challenges and unmet needs that could drive long-term customer loyalty? 

If your sales team isn't truly understanding your buyers, you're not just losing revenue opportunities—you’re also losing trust and the potential for lasting relationships. So, how do you know if your sales team is in tune with your buyer’s reality? The answer starts with alignment, and it can make all the difference in meeting your revenue targets and keeping customers for the long haul. 

Here are six tried-and-true ways I've found success with to diagnose whether my sales team really understands the buyer’s needs.

 1. Listen to Buyer-Facing Conversations
  

Ask yourself: Is my sales team listening carefully and asking the right questions to uncover what the buyer truly wants?

 What to Do:
 
  • Review call recordings or listen in on live customer meetings.
  • Leverage AI tools like Gong, Chorus, or Avoma to analyze calls automatically.
 Look for:
 
  • Does the rep talk less than 50% of the time?
  • Are they actively listening, reflecting the buyer’s words back to confirm understanding?
  • Are they asking discovery questions that probe beyond surface-level needs to uncover the buyer’s real challenges?
 What This Tells You: If your reps are spending most of the call pitching features instead of listening to the buyer’s needs, they’re not really "getting it."
 
 

2. Test for Customer-Aligned Language

Ask yourself: Can my sales team describe our product or service using the buyer’s language, not ours?
 
What to Do:
 
  • Conduct a messaging audit to evaluate how well your sales team understands your buyer’s pain points and goals.
 What to Look For:
 
  • Can your reps articulate:
    • The buyer’s pain or business challenge?
    • The buyer’s timeline and urgency?
    • What success looks like from the buyer’s perspective?
What This Tells You: If your sales team can't communicate in the buyer's terms, they’re not effectively aligning your product with the buyer’s needs.
 
 

3. Run Roleplays: Can Your Team Step into the Buyer’s Shoes?

 Ask yourself: Can my team sell while standing in the buyer’s shoes?
 

What to Do:

  • Practice roleplays where your reps take the role of the buyer. Then, flip the roles and have them play the seller.
  • Ask them to uncover the buyer's specific business problems and tailor the pitch accordingly.
 What to Look For:
 
  • Can your reps articulate what keeps the buyer up at night?
  • Can they tailor the sales pitch to address those exact challenges?
 What This Tells You: If your reps struggle to understand or empathize with the buyer’s perspective, they’re not truly connected with the buyer's needs yet.
 
  

4. Use Win/Loss Interviews with Buyers

Ask yourself: Why are we really winning and losing deals?
 

What to Do: 

  • Conduct 10-15 minute win/loss interviews with buyers post-deal or send quick feedback surveys. 
  • Understand if reps truly aligned with the buyer’s needs and challenges.
 What to Look For:

  • Did the rep understand the buyer's priorities, constraints, and success metrics?

  • Did the buyer feel heard, or did they feel like the rep was just pushing a product?

  • Did the rep tailor the pitch to what mattered most to the buyer?

 What This Tells You: Going directly to the source—the buyer—is often the best way to uncover gaps in your reps' understanding.

 

5. Review Sales Cycles and Close Rates

Ask yourself: How fast are our sales cycles, and how high is our close rate?

What to Do:

  • Analyze your sales cycles: Are deals moving quickly from discovery to proposal to close?
  • Check win rates and lost deal reasons.

What to Look For:

  • Do deals close faster when reps understand buyer needs?
  • Are there consistent patterns in why deals are lost (e.g., misalignment of value)?


What This Tells You: This may surprise you but I have found that when my reps really understand the buyer’s needs they tend to move deals forward more quickly and with higher close rates.


6. Track the Quality of Discovery Calls

Ask yourself: What is the quality of the data you’re capturing from discovery calls?

What to Do:

  • Review CRM notes or deal data post-discovery call.
  • Use a Discovery Scorecard to evaluate whether key points are captured.

What to Look For:

  • Are pain points and business impacts clearly documented?
  • Is there a focus on decision criteria and the buying process?
  • Do the notes reflect the buyer’s language, not just company jargon?
What This Tells You: If the CRM is sparse or filled with vague summaries like "interested in product," your team hasn’t done a proper discovery.

 

Wrapping It Up

If you’re unsure whether your sales team is pitching or truly understanding your buyers, these six methods will help you find out. The first step to aligning your sales team with your buyer’s reality is awareness. By using these diagnostic techniques, you can take the guesswork out of your sales process and start building stronger, more profitable customer relationships.

So that's what I've found works.....What do you do to ensure your sales team truly understands your buyer’s needs?