One thing I’ve noticed lately in coaching my team is how easy it is to lose sight of why a customer came to us in the first place.
Every deal starts with a reason. A problem. A goal. A frustration. A gap. Something wasn’t working, and they came to us to help fix it.
But as the sales process unfolds, things get messy. New stakeholders show up. Priorities shift. Procurement gets involved. Timelines move. Suddenly, what started as a clear problem to solve becomes a juggling act of opinions, requests, and side conversations.
If we’re not careful, we end up solving the process of the deal instead of solving the problem that started it.
That’s when momentum stalls.
I’ve been working with my team on a few specific ways to stay grounded in why the customer showed up in the first place and I’ve seen it make a big difference in how confidently they navigate complex deals.
Here are four things you can do:
1. Write the Original Pain on Paper and Keep It Visible
The first time you hear the customer’s real problem write it down somewhere visible. Not buried in your CRM notes, but somewhere you’ll actually see it.
It could be something as simple as:
- “They’re losing too much time onboarding new reps.”
- “They can’t forecast accurately because of inconsistent data.”
- “They’re struggling to scale without losing quality.”
That statement should stay front and center through every meeting and every update. When new voices enter the deal or the conversation drifts, that original pain anchors you. You can always come back to: “Is what we’re discussing helping solve this?”
2. Reconfirm the ‘Why’ at Every Major Milestone
As deals evolve, so do priorities and sometimes they shift quietly. I make it a habit to ask, at key stages of a deal:
“Has anything changed about what success looks like for you?”
That single question does two things:
- It shows you’re paying attention to their evolving business context.
- It helps you realign around what still matters most.
Deals that lose momentum often do so because the seller assumes the “why” hasn’t changed. Reconfirming it keeps you from solving yesterday’s problem.
3. Get the ‘Why’ in the Words of Multiple Stakeholders
If you’re only hearing the “why” from one person, you’re at risk. Different stakeholders often have slightly different motivations for the same initiative.
A director might care about process efficiency. A VP might care about visibility and control. The CFO might care about cost predictability.
By capturing how each of them describes the problem, you can tailor your narrative and keep the whole group connected to the shared purpose behind the deal.
4. Use the Original Problem in Your Internal Conversations
This one is underrated. When you talk about deals internally, with SEs, product, or leadership, always frame updates around the customer’s original pain.
Instead of “We’re waiting for budget approval,” say “We’re helping them fix a forecasting gap that’s costing them hours every week. Budget is the final step to making that happen.”
When you anchor your internal updates to the why, it keeps everyone aligned on what matters — and reinforces the urgency of solving it.
Every deal has noise, but if you can keep the signal clear, you become the one person in the process who never loses the plot.
Customers notice that.
They trust sellers who remember their problems better than they do, who bring them back to purpose when things get cloudy, and who connect every next step to the outcome that started it all.
So here’s my challenge for the week: go back to your top three deals and ask yourself if you still have a clear handle on why this customer came to us in the first place? And does the customer know that I haven’t forgotten it either?
Because deals that stay anchored in purpose are the ones that close with conviction.
