How to “sell’ and not “tell”

Posted: February 11, 2015 | Categories: Sales

This week I was coaching a client as he was looking ahead to an important sales call.  He wanted to work on his listening skills.  He said that he sensed there were times when he did too much of the talking. I asked Bill what percentage of the time he usually does the talking.  He thought it was about 80%.  I asked him how he prepared for the call.  He said he had an idea of what he wanted to say.  As we talked more about the purpose of the call, it became apparent that the purpose of this call was to understand what the prospect wants and why they want it.  Additional knowledge would be needed from this conversation regarding what was in place and what was missing, The first thing I challenged Bill to do was to think of all the information he would like to have to fully understand his prospects situation and what was most important to him.  Once this was done, it was time to craft open-ended questions that would draw that information out.  He now had his questions.  He was prepared. The next step is the meeting.  He would start with some pleasantries, and then transition to the business agenda.  To make this bridge, he would say, “In order for me to make this delivery go smoothly and ensure that your team is properly trained, do you mind if I ask you some questions?”  This is important.  In asking this, he is getting a license to ask questions. With the questions in hand, he will begin keeping these fundamentals in mind:

1. Ask the questions
2. Listen carefully.
3. Listen to understand rather than respond.
4. Affirm the answer.
5. If your affirmation is not correct, ask for further clarification.
6. Affirm again.
7. Move right to the next question.

When asking questions, it is tempting to go off on a tangent and do some premature selling.  We must be patient.  The benefit:  When we do present the solution, it fits like “Cinderella’s Slipper!”

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