"how do i get customers to be more strategic?"

Great discussion over at Gain Grow Retain on "Helping customers become more strategic,"
where a member said this:

"...some clients cannot see, refuse to see, or refuse to even care about the value and importance of the services we offer and stay focused only on what is in front of them at the moment."

Here's my take:

How to get customers to be heads up vs. heads down (tactical). Tip: Ask if you can take 10 - 15 minutes for a "step back" conversation, then ask a few disruptive (disrupt the customer's same ol' thought patterns) about their company's priorities and challenges and their team's broader priorities - instead of about your product and the value they perceive.

1. Tell them you want to understand what's happening in their world, which will help your company be a better partner over the long term. Over 2/3 of customers who get this request from one of my clients schedules a call. (I have an email template for this.)
   
2. Two examples of disruptive questions: (i) If I was a fly on the wall at your next board or executive leadership meeting, what do you think is the biggest priority or challenge I’d hear about? (ii) Q: What’s the one thing your company is absolutely counting on you to get done this year? 
   
3. What I've learned during 2,600 customer discovery conversations is that customers are experts in their own business/job. They are not, nor do they aspire to be, experts in your product. This explains why they engage so much when you (a) ask about their business and their team's priorities, then (b) just go on mute and don't jump in to solve or sell. No agenda other than uncovering what they believe is important.
   
4. Their answers will help you better position your product/solution against one of their big priorities or sub-priorities.

Also - and perhaps it's just me - but the wording of the post sounded understandably frustrated but even a bit anti-customer: "Some clients cannot see, refuse to see, or refuse to even care about the value and importance of the services we offer." There could be an empathy gap here.

1. The way I encourage teams to think of this is that clients just want to do their job well, perhaps get some recognition, feel professionally satisfied and achieve growth (if that's the path they're on). They're just humans trying to get stuff done. So empathy is in order. Unless they're toxic which is another story. I wouldn't think of them as flat out "refusing," but just not understanding why you're asking them to take a step back.
2. So if you want to change their behavior, try modeling that behavior first. If you want them to be transparent, ask more authentic questions showing them you want their truth. If you want them to be strategic, position your "ask" per #1 above. Then all you have to do is listen to understand vs. listen to respond.

IMX (in my experience) and the experience of the teams I work with, customers talk 70%+ of the time when you use these approaches.