Talking is not selling

Too many salespeople equate with talking (or, more appropriately, preaching).

The most successful salespeople spend the bulk of their time asking well researched questions and then listening intently to the answers.

What they end up with is a profile of their sales prospect. Most importantly, listening enables the salesperson to build up a "needs" profile. What are my prospect's hot buttons? What are his or her problems? In what order does my prospect think they need to be addressed? Is my prospect a real prospect or simply fishing for information? Does he or she have money to spend on my solution? Are they in a position to make a decison or do they have to refer to someone else? What is the potential timeline for a decision? What benefits are they seeking from a solution? Why?

Now the salesperson is in a position to be able to sell.

The key is not to sell what YOU think the prospect wants. The key is to sell what the PROSPECT thinks he wants. A Ferrari salesperson would, I imagine, be highly tempted to sell the high performance aspects of his product. His potential buyer on the other hand may only be looking at a Ferrari to be able to show off and boost his ego in front of his colleagues and peers with a name brand sports car. Selling performance to this prospect may very well result in a lost sale.

In "the old days" we used to hear time and time again the adage "the customer is always right". Well in the 21st century nothing has changed.

Prospects want to talk. They want to tell you their problems. (They also want you to believe that they have the money to make a purchase now and they and only they are the final decison makers - this is where the qulaification skills of the salesperson need to be utilized (but more about qualification in another blog post)).

So instead of barging in like a bull in a china shop the salesperson would be wise in taking advantage of the prospect's willingness to share information. because this knowledge will provide the salesperson with the power to be able to target the prospect's hot spots and, all things being equal, close the sale, and close it faster and with less fuss.

In the selling game knowledge truly is power. And this knowledge can only be gained if the salesperson talks less and listens more.

iSyndica - the web distributor - Upload once, sell everywhere!

iSyndica - the web distributor - Upload once, sell everywhere!

Posted using ShareThis