No, you don’t know what you’re selling, yet!
You know your product, its features and its benefits. It has a full presentation explaining all of this, complete with visual aids. So why waste a prospect’s time with small talk? Shouldn’t you jump straight into your presentation?
No, you shouldn’t, and here’s why. No matter how good it is, your generic presentation presents your product or service as a commodity, not a solution for the particular customer. Customers don’t care about your products; they care about their own problems and opportunities. They want to know that you understand their problems before they start talking about how their products can “solve” them.
Do you think you have a great product presentation? So does every competitor you have.
When salespeople understand their customers’ needs before presenting their products, the presentation can be tailored to hit specific hot spots. This also avoids many objections that commonly arise later in the sales cycle.
To figure out “what to sell,” you need to exercise good questioning skills and gather customer information. The things you want to know fall into four categories:
Need: Ask open-ended questions to uncover problems and opportunities that your products and services may address. Examples: “What is the biggest problem with the current method you are using?” “What are the consequences of not solving this problem?”
Company Issues: What is the company or customer department trying to achieve with this buying decision, and why is it important? “What goals has your company set itself in this regard?” “What will it mean for the company if it’s successful?”
Personal issues: What is at stake for the client himself, professionally or personally? “What will it mean to you if these goals are achieved?”
Money matters: Find out about the budget that exists for the purchase or how the expense would be justified. “What kind of budget have you set for this project?” Or, “What areas would you look at to justify a purchase like this?”
Once you know this, you will be in a position to present your product as a solution, not just another alternative in a sea of commodities. Instead of a classic data dump, your presentation can now be targeted to specific needs that really matter to this customer.
In the countryside:
Why do so many salespeople jump right into their product presentations before researching their customers’ needs? Usually it’s because they’re flying by the seat of their pants. They lack a strategic framework to follow throughout the entire sales cycle. Unfortunately, delivering a canned presentation is all they really know how to do.
An account executive with Delta Industrial in Minneapolis, MN, recently summarized the benefits of taking a consistent, unified, step-by-step approach to the sales process. “The biggest thing that Sales Action Sales Training has done for me,” he said, “is really got me thinking and strategizing about what I’m trying to accomplish on each sales call to move the process forward.”