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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.
8 Questions to Ask
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!
Recommended Books on How to Sell:
- How to Sell Anything to Anybody
- How To Sell When Nobody’s Buying: (And How to Sell Even More When They Are)
- How to Sell at Margins Higher Than Your Competitors : Winning Every Sale at Full Price, Rate, or Fee
- The Psychology of Selling: Increase Your Sales Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible
- 501 Killer Marketing Tactics to Increase Sales, Maximize Profits, and Stomp Your Competition: Revised and Expanded Second Edition
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- Mix
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- Copy Link