Your job as a sales person is to offer the customer a solution to a problem they have, or provide them with something they haven’t seen before either way you need to have an understanding of what their needs are, you can only do this by asking questions. Once you have their answers you can then tailor what you are going to say to meet their requirements.
MISTAKE NUMBER TWO
Not asking the right questions and not asking enough of them
SOLUTION NUMBER TWO
Ask carefully chosen, open-ended questions to draw out information from the buyer.
The first couple of meetings are all about gathering information from the customer.
Think about it: there is no point in providing a detailed overview of your products and business if everything you are saying does not match what the customer needs. By collecting information you can then tailor your sales pitch to meet their needs; this is called needs analysis and problem solution selling. Through collecting information you can identify problems in their business or with the incumbent supplier and you can then provide a solution with your product or service offering. This is critical!
It is important to ask open ended questions about your customers, their business and products, in the first couple of meetings rather than talking about you and your products.
Some of the things you should collect information on are:
- The buyer: favourite sport and teams, hobbies, family situation, likes and dislikes, their time spent with the company, and career history.
- The business: its history, its brands, its marketing position, business strategy (growth, consolidation, export and acquisitions) and the competition.
You need to look for information that provides you with a connection with the buyer, either on a personal or professional level. The ideal situation is to obtain a connection on both levels.
For a more formal business perspective, some good questions to ask are:
- What are the most important elements that keep your organisation functioning?
- What are your greatest challenges?
- What concerns do you have in your business?
- Are there any aspects of your product or service that currently cause issues in your business?
- In an ideal world, what would you change about your current product or service?
- What do you see as the primary benefits of our [solution]? Do you see any other potential benefits?
- What is important to you about making a change at this time? Have you considered or tried to make changes in the past? What prevented you from considering a new [solution] last time?
