Good morning everyone,
I hope you have had a great week and increasing your sales with your customers. If not, reach out and I will be glad to help you. I do not charge on the first call and am here for you! That is why I do these blogs. To help you win!
Last week we talked about what is going through the customer’s head when they are meeting with you and the three main questions they are asking:
1. Do I like you?
2. Do I trust you?
3. How can you help me?
Today we are going to answer how you the professional sales person will answer these questions. You do this by uncovering needs. Yep, you are going to ask them questions. There has been a great deal of study on what questions to ask and old sales techniques always told you to ask open ended questions that are not answered with simple answers like “yes”, or “no”. What I have found is that there is no correlation to success with asking all open-ended questions as opposed to closed ended questions. Obviously if you ask all closed ended questions you will lose interest from the customer and they will move along.
I chose to use a mixture of open-ended questions and close ended questions. I let the conversation flow well and make the customer feel relaxed. Keep in mind when you are asking questions, the customer is likely to have their guard up. Making the customer feel more relaxed is key at the beginning. Pay attention to the colors you wear when meeting with a customer. Wearing a presidential power suit will likely turn them off. Choose relaxing colors. I tend to wear white and light blue tones when meeting with the customer the first few times. These are colors that people relate to with honesty. There is a great deal of study on this and one great resource is a book called “Influence,” but I warn it is a very dry book to work through so have something to keep your energy levels up if you read it.
In the Uncover Needs of the sales process you are looking to draw out information from the customer so that you can sell them the best solution. You need to find out their needs. Needs are grouped into three areas and I use the acronym SIR:
1. Situational
2. Issues
3. Ramifications
Next week I will show you how to create questions to ask that align with your features and benefits to make you more successful, but for today we need to focus on the types of needs that you need to be focused on. Today we will focus on the three main types of questions.
Situational needs are questions you use to draw out where the customer is. This is where they are at in the buying process, where they want to get to in the future, who is the decision maker, what is their process for making a decision, what is driving their need for looking at options, etc. These are very probing questions and customers are usually not wanting to discuss for hours on end. The more questions you ask that are situational the more risk you have of the customer losing interest. You will want to limit the amount of situational questions that you ask so make sure you are asking the best ones.
The larger the transaction there are likely more than one decision maker. I have had to address large teams of decision makers for deals in the multi-million range. When I was selling outdoor power equipment to landscapers it was usually one or two people. Keep that in perspective when you are in the situational questions to understand if you are speaking to the correct decision makers.
Issues are the needs you really need to focus on. They are the limiting factors for organizations that want to move forward, or the reasons why organizations may fail. These are highly motivating needs that you need to address with your product or service. Pain is a large driver in making changes so find out what pain they are experiencing and why. You also need to understand why these issues are causing them limits or pain. Asking what success would look like to the customer here would help them think in depth and confide in you a little more. They may also bring in the people that are actually experiencing the pain to help describe to you the issue not just the symptom of the issue. The key is to find the issues that you can resolve with your product or service.
Ramifications are also highly motivating needs that you will want to know. If the customer is unsuccessful in finding an option to mitigate the issue they have, what does that look like? Does the organization have to close its doors, does it lose a large contract, or is it smaller to where the customer can not find a special gift for someone special? When the stakes are high people are very motivated to find a solution and are more open to options. Make sure when asking ramification questions that you are building up the problem in the customer’s mind to drive a sense of urgency so they open up, bring in others that can help provide information, and help you find more information to drive the best solution. The more you elevate the issue the better influence you can have on helping your customer. Understanding the ramifications well will strengthen your sales presentation later and can move the customer to action.
Be careful not to jump into your presentation just yet. If you do not uncover all of the needs prior to presenting they you will miss the target and then you risk devaluing your solution. When I do half and full day training on the sales process I walk teams through the entire process including developing the questions that will derive larger impact with their customers. We really take time to develop great questions for the sales teams to make greater impact which results in better profits.
That is all for this week just remember to use SIR when remembering the types of questions to ask customers. Next week I will show you the road map for pulling out great questions that will make you successful for asking questions to pull out these needs.
Have a great weekend!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom