View Yourself As A Professional
If you want to be successful in sales, you have to view yourself as a professional. And as a professional, it is your responsibility to diagnose problems and recommend solutions--whether or not the prospect brings those problems to your attention. It's your job to not only help them with the problems they know they have, but also to reveal additional problems they may not see or understand. This is not high pressure. It is high service.
Your job is to diagnose problems and recommend solutions. Period. Here's a quick overview of the conversation you need to have with your prospects in order to do this effectively and professionally, every time.
1. Ask questions to identify your prospect's problems. Think about all the different types of problems your product/service can solve. Remember that your prospect may ignore or overlook problems that you could solve for them. This is especially true if they don't even know the extent of what you can do for them.
2. Your question process should work to not only uncover these problems, but also to reveal the emotions associated with them that will drive their purchasing decision. Keep in mind the importance of asking questions in a way that gets your prospect to agree with your narrative. It's not so much about the specific questions you ask--it's about how you ask them. You can tell you've discovered those emotions that will drive the purchasing decision because your prospect will use emotive terms like "frustrated" or "embarrassed" when they tell you how they feel about a problem.
3. As you uncover the problems and emotions, get permission to offer solutions later in the process. This can often be achieved by simply responding to the prospect's explanation of a problem like this: "Sounds like that's something I should keep in mind when I design your plan, yes?"
4. Once you've concluded the questioning, wrap things up by asking your prospect to publicly declare they can reach a yes or no decision, closing the "I need to think about it" door. By this point, you've laid the groundwork, gathered a ton of valuable information, and are ready to propose a solution to your prospect's problems and proceed with your closing sequence. You are performing your professional duties like a champ, and you'll have the opportunity to bring the sales presentation to a conclusion--one way or the other.
You see, selling doesn't have to be a constant struggle. All you have to do is make new friends, diagnose, and recommend. It's really that simple Well, okay, there's a little more to it! That's why I wrote my latest book, Consistency Selling. Stay tuned for the release in October 2, 2018 and in the meantime remember, YOU CAN DO THIS!
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