The conclusion of good questioning skills. Have you studied up for the second part?

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OK. Good job! You got the appointment with this important prospect. Now what?

You better plan carefully and intelligently. No winging it – you’re better than that. You’re a professional salesperson – a value resource, a consultant to your prospect, not a product pusher or a data dumper.

So – be PREPARED. But how?

Start with the critical questions that every prospect wants answered when you show up for a sales call:

• Who are you?
• What do you want?
• Why are you here?
• Who do you represent?
• What’s in it for me?

Here’s how you can do it:

“I’m (your name) from (your company) and the purpose of our meeting today is to meet you, get to know you better, talk with you about (whatever your product/service is) and to discuss anything you might like to discuss with me.”

NOW SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO YOUR PROSPECT’S RESPONSE

You’ll be amazed at how this simple, direct way of approaching your prospect takes the tension out of those first few seconds of your encounter. Notice that the wording of this phrase gets to the point and answers all of your prospect’s unspoken questions quickly – AND you’re putting the focus on the prospect…“Get to know you, talk with you, and discuss anything you might like to discuss…”…That last point is critical because you’re letting the prospect know that you’re interested in talking about THEIR concerns.

Next, you can use a “bonding statement” like this one:

“We work hard to make sure our customers get exactly what they want, and that’s how I’d like to work with you. In order to see if I can do that, do you mind if I ask you some questions?”

NOW SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO YOUR PROSPECT’S RESPONSE

Usually you’ll hear, “OK, go ahead.”

So let your prospect do the talking (if they choose to). The best way to encourage talking is to ask reflective, open-ended, easy-to-answer questions in a conversational way.

But sometimes you might hear, “I don’t have time to answer questions.”

In that case, you can ask, “When would be a good time to continue?” After all, the reality is simple: If a prospect won’t talk to you, they probably won’t buy from you either!

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The word “pitch” offends me and it should offend you, too.

Why?

Would you want to get pitched? When I hear that word, I’m confident some prospect is about to suffer from an attack of sleaze.

Anyone in sales knows that the opportunity to meet (in person or over the phone) with a prospect or customer is a rare treat. Give it the respect it deserves. Don’t demean your prospect by hurling an unending stream of canned or memorized words at them. Don’t pitch. Instead, carefully choose your questions, observations and tailored presentation. Then remember to reserve any recommendation until you:

• Understand exactly what your prospect wants and
• Are certain you can provide it.

Stop calling a professional sales presentation a “pitch.” I, for one, believe that word is one of the reasons our profession has a bad reputation. Help me eliminate it.

If other professions want to continue to use the word (PR, advertising, etc.), that’s their problem. Let them suffer the fallout. Frankly, they already have.

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Listening is one of the most important skills to be a successful seller. But if you don’t have good questioning skills it’s difficult to listen to the answer from your prospect. This week Bill uncovers the first part of his presentation of good questioning skills.

Click the green play button above to play the audio

This and other podcasts are available to download at itunes to help your selling career. If you have never used itunes and need help to download and install it click here for a tutorial.

You can click the “itunes” icon on the sidebar to take you directly to our podcast site.

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Last week I talked about preparing questions that allow your prospect to verbalize, identify, their chief, dominant needs, desires and wishes – the source of their pain, their greatest challenge, their primary issue etc. – the “heart” of what they need.

Yes “needs” here, because our products are “need specific” – products do specific things that only they are designed to do. So, we say products are “need specific” and we also say, “If you can’t sell to a need then go do something else.” With all due respect, this is the essence though not the totality of selling. Because people still buy what they want! (Another blog!)

Let’s look at some questions that invite your prospect to verbalize:

• What specifically do you want / need to accomplish?
• What are you looking for that you haven’t been able to find?
• What do you like most about your current provider?
• What have your seen that’s particularly interesting to you?
• Why would you consider another vendor?
• What time frame do you have in mind?
• What budget do you have established?
• How soon would you like to get started?
• Who else other then you of course, in involved with this decision?
• And on and on…you could easily think of 500 more questions just like these.

Your preparation determines which questions you ask. Did you notice all of the questions were open-ended? All encourage dialogue. All help the prospect verbalize THEIR concerns. And require you to give them your undivided attention (listen).

Some will talk more than others. Be patient! Listen! Prospects buy at their pace, not necessarily ours. Let them do that with your guidance, not your domination. And enjoy the results.

Submitted by: Richard Dickerson

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