Solving people's and organization's
problems is ultimately what business is all about. Effective selling
involves defining your existing or potential customer s problems. If
properly sold, a sales prospect will have his problems solved with your
company's products or services. To be successful at selling, you must
systematically approach customers with a proven repertoire of qualifying
questions that allows you to clearly understand your customer's current
business challenges.
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In order to most effectively solve your customer s problems you have to
ask questions, the right questions and most importantly, listen to the
answers you get. The best source of information about a sales prospect s
business problem is the prospect themselves. However, any seasoned
salesperson will tell you that the customer does not always know what their
problem is, how it happened or how to deal with it. Without a proven list of
problem definition questions, a salesperson has little chance of achieving
sales success.
In every selling situation, there are eight fundamental questions that
must be answered to ultimately generate a purchase commitment, a solution to
your customer's problems:
- Does the customer know exactly what the business problem is? Are
they giving you symptoms of a problem or the problem itself?
- How long has the problem existed? Is this a temporary situation or
an ongoing challenge?
- What will happen if the problem continues? Short and long term
ramifications should be explored
- What has been done thus far to address the problem? This answer
could be your door opener later!
- What were the results of those efforts to fix the problem? Actions
taken and money spent should be quantified here
- What is the cost thus far of this problem? Here you can determine
what it cost them NOT to have your company s products
- Are there budgeted funds available to fix this problem? If there
aren't, why not and will there be? If not, good luck!
- Who is involved and how is the purchase commitment to be made?
You must clearly understand who the decision makers are and how the
commitment decision is to be made. If you do not, there will always be
someone else who will kill your deal within the organization!
Once you have valid answers to all these questions you can accurately
determine whether the products or services your company has to offer can
cost effectively solve your customer s problems. If your products or
services can solve your customer s problem you now have something to talk
about!
Before you begin your sales pitch, your explanation of how your offerings
best meet their needs, be absolutely sure that you have all the decision
makers at your presentation and have confirmed the money is budgeted to back
up their purchases. If all the key decision makers are not present and you
are not sure the funds are there to continue the relationship your
probability of achieving sales success at this customer has been
dramatically reduced!
One Final Question: Ask for the Order!
You may be wondering why asking for the order is not one of the 8 Key
Questions to Ask in Every Selling Situation ? When you know your product or
service can solve your customer's problem cost effectively, and it is clear
they understand and sincerely appreciate the value of your product or
service offerings to a level of justification that they can, and will, make
a reasonable purchase commitment to you, you have AN OBLIGATION, not only to
your company, but to your customer, to ask them to buy what your are
selling! A simple way to do this is to ask: What do you want to do next? say
nothing more until they respond.
Effective selling can be as simple as striving to get accurate answers to
these fundamental problem qualification questions. It is most interesting to
experience how systematically going through these eight questions with your
potential customer will reduce their tendency to generate purchase
objections. Also, there is an interesting relationship or bond that develops
between the salesperson and the customer when they are asked to explain and
again experience why it cost so much for them NOT to have your products or
services in their lives!
Today's successful salesperson is a problem solver. How you define your
customer s business problems can often be as important as how you eventually
solve their problems. Use these fundamental problem definition questions as
a format for your next sales call and see what happens. They could be the
edge you need to get that order you thought you would never get!
About the Author:
Mark Smock is 30+ year veteran of the sales profession and President of
http://www.business-buyer-directory.com , the FIRST international
business buyer directory of its kind. Business Buyer Directory provides a
non-traditional means for proactive business buyers to locate businesses for
sale worldwide that meet their exact registered purchase criteria.
April 27, 2004
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