Have you ever talked yourself out of a sale? If you have, there’s a good chance you weren’t listening to your customer. Too many people think it’s their role to do all the talking to sell their product or service. In reality, what ends up happening is they talk themselves out of the sale because they don’t know what’s essential to the customer.
Unfortunately, too many of us make the mistake of selling our products or services before fully understanding our prospects’ most pressing challenges. Don’t keep repeating the same error; instead, keep reading to learn how to diagnose before you prescribe to be successful sales.
The current problem | Diagnose before you prescribe
Too many salespeople try to sell products or services before fully understanding our prospects’ most pressing challenges. Selling a product or service to someone you’re not entirely sure needs it is comparable to your doctor handing you a prescription before fully understanding your symptoms. Can you imagine that happening? Of course not! Following the same logic, you wouldn’t promote your products and services to customers before you clearly know what they need and their problems.
Also read: 10 Sales Needs Analysis Questions You Should Always Ask Prospects
How to effectively diagnose before you prescribe
Now you understand why you need to diagnose before you prescribe, let’s delve into how to do this as part of your sales process effectively:
1. Qualify Prospects
Identifying people as prospects (prospecting) is essential to personal selling. You qualify prospects by asking three questions.
- Do they need your product?
- Do they have the ability to pay for your product?
- Do they have the authority to purchase your product?
Always keep these three questions in mind and refine your prospect list to help you avoid wasting time calling on people who are unlikely to do business with you.
2. Ask Questions
Here’s a great question to start with: What’s the #1 challenge you’re facing? Ask this question, listen and take notes. People are more than happy to share what’s not working and their problems with you. Because very few people even ask this question, you’ll come across as a professional who genuinely cares about them.
I’ll ask YOU the same question. What’s YOUR #1 challenge in selling? If you could sit down with me for a coffee (or beer), what’s the #1 question you would ask me? Go into the Youtube video comments, and share your #1 challenge in selling.
3. Start a fact-finding mission
These meetings aim to uncover your prospects’ greatest challenges and what they’re doing now, if anything, to overcome those challenges. You’re on a fact-finding mission, and the answers to these questions will help you see if you can match your solution to their challenges. This will also allow you to modify your offering if necessary. Avoid the temptation
to start selling.
Final Word: Gain the Skills To Tell Prospects ‘What’s in it for them’
Gain the foundational sales skills everyone in sales needs to master with Selling Your Solution Training, whether asking the right questions to uncover problems, presenting your solution effectively, tactfully overcoming objections, or presenting so efficiently that closing becomes easy.
We equip participants with the knowledge and application skills to assess customer needs better, adopt a consultative selling approach, and avoid losing deals by not proposing inadequate solutions.
