December 23, 2008
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
Sandler Rule: When the Prospect is Listening, You Are Not Selling
During a sales meeting, the prospect should be talking and the salesperson listening. This is especially true during initial sales meetings. Typically, however, the opposite occurs. The salesperson feels compelled to talk about as many features, benefits, and unique selling points of his product or service as time permits in an attempt to capture the prospect’s interest.
If the prospect merely wants a rundown on various aspects of your product or service, he can simply read your marketing brochure. Investing time to meet with you would not be necessary.
“Selling” is not about “telling.” It’s about helping the prospect relate your product or service to the satisfaction of his wants and needs. (And, helping him discover needs of which he was previously unaware.) This is accomplished by asking thought-provoking questions and then listening… really listening.
You can educate (and stimulate interest) with a question more effectively than citing features and benefits. “Our software analyzes regional warehousing and distribution costs in relation to regional sales patterns and identifies areas for cost saving. In more than 72% of the studies performed in the last 12 months, we’ve discovered typical saving of 18-34%. Blah, blah, blah.” Informative? Yes. Provocative? No. You might as well hand the prospect a brochure and conduct a read-along.
By asking a question, you can not only inform, but you can engage the prospect. For example: “If you were to analyze your warehousing and handling costs and compare them to your regional sales patterns to determine how much money you are wasting on excess capacity, what do you suppose you’d discover?” Informative and provocative. And, more importantly, it engages the prospect and stimulates a conversation about the usefulness of such an analysis. It gets the prospect talking.
When you get the prospect talking, shut your mouth; don’t interrupt. You can open your ears or you can open your mouth, but you can’t do both at the same time. Let the prospect finish, then ask questions or make comments. And, don’t think about what you’re going to say until the prospect has finished speaking. If you’re thinking about what you are going to say, you are not listening!
You can lose a sale by talking too much. But, you’ll never lose a sale by listening too much.
Old Clients…New Business
A mistake too many salespeople make is not keeping in touch with former clients. It’s not uncommon for past clients to come to a point where they need your product or service again but don’t remember how to get in touch with you. They are more likely to have your competitors’ information handy. (Your competitors are still calling on your client even though you are not.)
The odds of obtaining business from a former client are typically better than the odds of obtaining business from cold prospecting. So, keeping in touch with former clients is not only the professional thing to do, it also makes good business sense.
“Keeping in touch” doesn’t mean pestering them—pushing for a sale. It simply means letting them know that you are still there, ready to provide service when necessary. This can be accomplished in various ways: a regularly scheduled phone call—just to say, “Hello”; a monthly or quarterly newsletter about industry events and trends; a monthly e-mail regarding new products or services. Don’t try to overwhelm your client; just make it easy for them to find you.
Practice makes perfect…or does it?
Salespeople invest time developing their “pitch,” formulating questions, and preparing responses to expected questions and objections from the prospect. They rehearse, refine, and rehearse some more.
Unfortunately, for some salespeople the preparation becomes a roadblock to their success. How? The salesperson meets with the prospect and delivers his well-crafted, well-rehearsed message. But, instead of paying attention to the prospect’s reactions, he is running through a mental checklist of important points to cover. He misses the look of puzzlement on the prospect’s face. He doesn’t notice the prospect casually glancing at phone messages.
At a strategic point in the presentation, the salesperson asks one of the preplanned “commitment” questions. Again, instead of focusing all his attention on the prospect’s answer, he is thinking about his response to an anticipated stall or objection. The meeting ends with the prospect promising to give the presentation some thought.
The salesperson deems the meeting a waste of time and blames the prospect for not paying attention… and not recognizing the obvious value he presented. He was so concerned about delivering his message as he rehearsed it, that he missed the expression of skepticism on the prospect’s face. He never recognized the point when the prospect lost interest. He never had a chance to recover.
It’s OK to plan and rehearse your meeting. Practice, practice, practice until you have internalized the message you want to get across and the information you need to obtain—then, let it go. Sales meetings rarely go as imagined. After all, the prospect isn’t working from a script…and neither should you.
If you’ve thoroughly internalized your information, you won’t have to worry about delivering it in a structured manner. You can direct your attention to your prospect and let the information flow based on the prospect’s interest and reactions.
Earn Compound Interest on Every Call
Everyone knows someone. Actually, everyone knows several someones. Your customers as well as the prospects you call on know, have some contact with, or at the very least know of people who can benefit from your product or service. Unfortunately, they are not programmed to automatically disclose the names of those people to you. That doesn’t mean that they won’t: you must initiate the action.
Salespeople typically “forget” to ask for referrals. Why? Some reasons are technical: it’s not a part of their selling process. There is not a logical connection from one element of the process to the act of asking for referrals. And, they don’t have a strategy for asking. Other reasons are more conceptual in nature: they don’t want to appear “needy.” They relate the request to begging. Whatever the reason, they are missing out on potential business and making their jobs more difficult.
So, to make sure you don’t “forget” to ask for referrals, make it the last step of any sales call with a prospect or customer. Imagine your sales manager standing nearby ready to ask, “Did you ask for a referral?”
Your referral requests should be simple and to the point. Say to a prospect, regardless of the outcome of your meeting: “Now that you know more about what we do for our clients, I suspect that you know of a business colleague or contact who could benefit from our service. Who might that be?”
To a customer with whom you have a good track record: “George, you’ve always been pleased with the level of service we’ve provided. I’m wondering which one of your business colleagues or contacts would also appreciate the same level of service.”
When customers or prospects provide you with a referral, call them after you’ve made contact with the referred person to again thank them and let then know what happened. Not only is it polite, but it’s an opportunity to obtain another name.
Trustpointe, Inc.
6666 East 75th Street, Suite 150
Indianapolis, IN 46250
Copyright ©2008 Trustpointe, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
