Some things in selling are crystal clear. One of them is that prospects will not buy unless a salesperson gets their attention in the first few moments of a sales call.

It’s during this critical time that customers determine if the product or service being offered is right for them.

Your salespeople can get the meeting off on the right foot by demonstrating they understand customer problems and goals, and have the ability to solve and fulfill them.

Prospects become customers when your salespeople solve problems for them. Customers also want — and need — to be educated. Don’t assume they know the difference between good and poor quality products and services, and how quality affects achieving their goals.

It’s the job of your salespeople to point out the relative advantages of your product/service, and how it will help prospects solve problems.

Motivating prospects to buy

Sales interviews need to motivate prospects to buy. This process centers on three things:

1. Getting a clear picture of the prospect’s objectives and showing how the product or service will meet those objectives.
2. Getting a feel for the prospect’s motivation behind agreeing to talk. Does the person believe that buying will lead to a beneficial outcome? And if so, what does he or she want that outcome to be?
3. Getting a sense of the prospect’s personality and selecting a sales approach that matches the way the prospect likes to be sold to.

If a customer feels that the opening remarks lack merit, the salesperson will be dismissed after a short, polite discussion. If the proposal is deemed worthy of consideration, the customer will explore it in greater depth.

Training tip: Ask a salesperson to role play an opening, and then ask for comments and suggestions from the rest of your reps on how it could be improved.

Identifying prospects’ objectives

A salesperson must have a clear picture of both the organizational objectives and personal objectives of the prospect. Look for things that include increasing performance, reducing cost, improving quality, increasing sales, reducing turnover, modernizing the office, etc.

Personal objectives usually will be related to promotions, raises, respect, power, influence and acceptance. The chances of making the sale are limited unless the salesperson can help the prospect achieve both a personal and an organizational objective.

Getting behind prospects’ objectives

The way to get a good sense of what’s behind a prospect’s objectives is by asking good questions and listening. It starts by simply having one or two questions that you feel comfortable with, such as:

• Can you give me a feel for your objectives?
• What do you want to happen?
• Why did you decide to see me?
• Can you give me a sense for what you’re trying to accomplish?

It can even help to soften some of these questions. Some examples:

• When we talked briefly by phone to set this meeting, you said my call was timely in view of something new you’re trying to accomplish. Could you tell me more about what that is?
• To get started, could you tell me what prompted you to meet now?
• As we discussed earlier, I’m here to talk with you about ___ . What are your objectives regarding this?
• You mentioned a couple of problems you wanted to talk about. Could you tell me about them?

Remember that gathering information is the secret to selling and that additional questions usually result in a rush of information. Even simple follow-up questions like these can help:

• Is there anything else?
• Anything else I need to know?

Final word: Top salespeople accept no excuses for poor performance. They view themselves as completely in charge of everything that happens to them. If they don’t like what’s going on, they decide it’s up to them to change it or improve it in some way.

Tags: acceptance, cost, increasing sales, influence, motivation, performance, power, quality, questions, respect, sales call, sales calls