Good evening everyone and I hope you had fun this past week drawing up some benefits and questions to ask to help draw out those benefits to your potential customer. I apologize again for the time between Rapport and the Uncovering Needs post. This is the follow up to Uncovering Needs.
This week is where I am discussing the next step called “verifying needs”. This is when we sit down to review with the customer some of their pain points, aspirations, and what makes them tick. You most likely will focus on the pain points and aspirations during the review as sometimes the potential customer will not want you to point out that they have told you something they should have kept private about themselves. That is an awkward few seconds that I have made the mistake of doing once. It was a very awkward pause that I had to excuse myself from.
So today you are verifying all the main points that they person has told you that align with your benefits that will be used later. I tend to make highlight of the top 3 or four. People tend to only remember a maximum of three points in my interactions. I use the main three benefits that I can offer and ask if those points are still something they would love to fix in the future. I also tend to try to do step before I leave from asking all of the questions to uncover the needs. This helps the person feel like I am really understanding them and that I really care. Which I do. I want to help those people get to a better place. I don’t want to be one of those cheap used car salesmen from that move in the 80’s.
At that point I reaffirm that I want to help them and if I can’t I do not want to waste any of their time as I understand how important their time is. After this I either step into the next step of the sales process, or use commitment step to get the next appointment set up to present to them some options that may enable them to reach their goals and eliminate their pain points.
If you are doing a good job of this and have uncovered some major pain points for them, they will almost be nodding along saying and affirming. When you have that point you know you are on the right track to move forward. Please keep in mind they have to get back to work so allow them to do so and don’t linger.
Make sure that you do your homework though for the next meeting and do not let much time away as they tend to forget what you talked about. Believe it or not people will forget how important you are when they get back to their daily grind. I also send a follow up prior to the next meeting so that what we talked about is fresh in their mind prior to us meeting. Also schedule uninterrupted time where you can have their undivided attention. Breakfast can be great for that as early in the morning there is less of a chance for someone to piss off your potential customer which could flow through to your interaction. Plus people tend to want to help someone that has done something for them unconsciously.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
Sales and Leadership Enterprises