If your sales people are involved in prospecting then they’ll already know the challenges of persuading a prospect to give them the business. Ultimately there is a 4-step process involved in buying, that all of us follow;

1. We have to feel MOTIVATED to make a purchase, irrespective of its type or size.

2. At some point after we’ve become motivated to want to buy, we make a DECISION to buy.

3. Then, after we have made a decision, we want to feel CONVINCED that our decision is the right one and at this stage we may seek approval and input from other people. Then, we’ll make our purchase.

4. Finally, after making our purchase we seek REASSURRANCE. Interestingly, if sales people haven’t nurtured newly acquired customers, this can result in ‘Buyers Remorse’ and the customer will get ‘cold feet’ and cancel their order.

Every step of this process requires careful handling, yet if the sales person lacks the ability to motivate their prospect to talk to them, let alone buy from them, the other steps become redundant.

According to a growing number of International Sales Gurus including Neil Rackham, David Sandler and Anthony Robbins, people are fundamentally motivated in 2 main ways:

1. What problem or pain they can avoid and move away from

2. What pleasure or benefit they can move towards

Imagine your alarm going off in the morning and you realise that you have to get out of bed. It’s just too warm and comfortable where you are, so you give yourself another 5 minutes. Then, after this time, you decide to lay in for another few minutes until you suddenly get a picture in your mind of your angry boss! The consequences of being late for your meeting with him, scares you into jumping out of bed.

Alternatively, imagine your alarm going off on the morning of your holiday. The prospect of sun, sea and Sangria, fills you with excitement as you jump out of bed to start your 2 week vacation.

If a prospect feels content with their current supplier or their current situation, then it will be a huge challenge to motivate them to want to buy your product or service. That’s why every pain your prospect feels is an opportunity for you. Your task, during the initial fact-finding stage is to uncover their ‘pain’ and help them to dwell on their problems. The stronger the pain or the bigger their problem, the greater their motivation will be to move away it. If you can convince prospects that your organisation can reduce one or more of their ‘pains’ then you have suddenly discovered a powerful way to unleash their motivation to buy from you.

Here are some examples of questions that probe for pain:

● “What areas of your current situation don’t you like?”

● “What is this costing your organisation each year?”

● “How do you feel about (problem)?”

● “Who else is aware of these issues?”

● “How do they feel about it?”

● “Why haven’t you tackled this before?”

● “How do your issues compare to those in similar organisations?”

● “Which of these problems is causing you the most concern?”

● “What have you done in the past that’s not worked?”

● “When did you begin noticing this issue?”

● “Why is this such an issue for you?”

● “When will you decide to resolve this?”

When probing for pain it’s more effective to start with general questions to build rapport and encourage discussion and plenty of input from the prospect. As you begin using questions that probe for pain you’ll notice shifts in their body language that can provide you with important feedback that your questions are hitting the mark. Ideally, encourage the prospect to define the consequences of their problem, this magnifies the problem in their minds eye and consequently builds their motivation to want to get it solved. Finally, you need to gain their commitment to resolving their problem by asking “How committed are

you to resolving this issue?”

In a selling environment where most good sales people appreciate the importance of discovering a prospect’s requirements, it is easy to take questioning skills for granted. Yet, questions that are crafted with strategic intent can uncover a myriad of secrets stored in the prospect’s mind. A typical trap that even the most experienced sales person can fall into, is that they make assumptions, either based on hard facts, possible facts or generalisations they’ve formed about their industry, prospects and themselves. Good questions seek to challenge and test assumptions so that the sales person’s mind and the mind of their prospect/customer is free to think clearly and consequently to provide the relevant information.  Before you can start to ask questions designed to uncover specifics, it’s important to give the prospect the opportunity to talk. The more they talk, the more signposts you’ll receive that will help lead the way to your desired outcome. Therefore, it helps to understand the definition and the positioning of different question types:

Open Questions

For example: “How can we help?”

● good for opening up the customer and getting broad, general, information that is uninfluenced by you

● gives the customer the freedom to tell you whatever they want

● tend to start with what, when, where, why, who, which or how

Leading Questions

For example: “What else can you tell me about your delivery requirements?”

● good for leading the customer in the direction you want them to go and finding out more specific information about their requirements

● tend to start with what, when, where, why, who, which or how

Closed Questions

For example: “Do you want to order this?”

● usually get a “yes” or “no” (or very short) answer

● useful when you want to pinpoint/clarify specific information

The type of questions you ask customers can generate an uninfluenced or an influenced response. Open questions tend to give you longer, uninfluenced answers that allow you to begin to appreciate what’s important to a customer. Leading questions are still open questions yet they influence customers’ responses around specific areas.

The Open, Leading and Closed Combination

Open questions »»» uninfluenced customer response »»» leading questions »»» influences customer response »»» closed question »»» validation of customer response

The example below illustrates the ideal combination of using open, leading and closed questions to pinpoint a customer’s specific requirements:

Sales person: “What’s important to you?” (Open question)

Customer: “Price, quality and efficiency.” (Uninfluenced response)

Sales person: “Why is price important to you?” (Leading question based on price)

Customer: “So I can be more competitive in winning new business.” (Influenced response based on price related question)

Sales person: “If I can demonstrate how we can help you win more business, will you review our proposition?” (Closed question to gain agreement)

Customer: “Yes” (influenced, definite response)

If a sales person pitches a prospect too early in the sales process and has not taken the time to fully appreciate that prospect’s requirements, they are likely to encounter much more resistance in comparison to a sales person who has first sought to identify and agree the prospect’s requirements prior to presenting their proposals.

In the current competitive climate where the role of sales people is becoming even more demanding, organisations that adopt a consultative approach are more successful.

Every prospect and customer is unique. They have their needs, their own set of problems and their own motives for choosing a particular supplier. That’s why if they receive a ‘bulk standard’ pitch, they will feel less compelled to properly evaluate it.  A consultative approach seeks to fully appreciate each prospects needs and gain agreement to those needs before presenting products/services in a way that demonstrates how their needs can be met.

There are a number of positive benefits gained by using this approach that includes:

• Improved sales results because the whole sales process becomes easier
• Less objections because your proposals are aligned to their requirements that they have already agreed to
• Better relationships because the prospect feels that you have a good understanding of what they want
• Easier negotiations because you have agreed their requirements with them that you can refer back to at a later date
• Price becomes less of an issue because you have identified all their requirements not just the price one. The more requirements they have helps you to build a case for why they should chose you
• Prospects feel listened to because a consultative approach has more contribution and input from the prospect
• More leverage because the offer is more compelling to the individual as it has been tailored to what they said they wanted

During each of the 4 steps of a consultative approach, there are a number of areas of competence that sales people should be excellent at demonstrating:

1. Find out the prospect’s requirements
   • Good questioning skills
   • Ability to probe for problems/the prospect’s pain
   • Rapport to ensure that the prospect feels comfortable answering the questions
   • Active listening skills
2. Agree the prospect’s requirements

·      Ability to summarise requirements in the prospect’s own words

·      Asking checking questions to flush out any other requirements that have not been mentioned

·      Maintaining good levels of rapport

1. Present solutions tailored to the prospect’s agreed requirements

·      Taking each requirement in turn and linking to a relevant feature of your product/service and highlighting the benefits gained from that feature

·      Using the prospect’s own words

·      Looking for non-verbal signs of agreement and if not seen, asking checking questions such as “How does that sound?”

·      Using the sensory communication type that the prospect has shown a preference for using. For example if the prospect is very visual, then using visual aids will help them to better understand your proposition

1. Agree the solutions

·      Summarising your proposed solutions

·      Maintaining rapport

·      Being vigilant to buying signals

Asking checking questions to flush out any hidden objections