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Trying to Build Your Business?
Focus on the Customer not the Products
By: Len D’Innocenzo and Jack Cullen
In today’s highly technical and quick paced world of sales, one piece of advice is very true, listen to the customer. Unfortunately, selling complex technical products or solutions (or anything else), causes most salespeople to focus on product features rather that on their benefits to the customer. |
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This product focused approach to sales is from the old school. It said that each product had specific features, advantages and benefits that would be of interest to a prospective customer. So salespeople would immediately commit to memory as many of the technical features of their products as possible.
You know the features I’m talking about; 1 meg of RAM memory, a 80 gigabyte hard disk drive, audio card with 30 watt speakers for great sound, continuous power line protection, and our personal favorite, a 3mb/second data transfer rate with automatic spindle synchronization.
After a dissertation on the associated benefits that went along with these product features, the prospect is suppose to sign on the dotted line because the salesperson certainly must have found a “hot-button” during this product review.
Usually something bizarre would happened. The prospect often is overwhelmed by all the facts and technical data that has been dumped on him. Even worse, the prospect went away with a shopping list of products that he didn’t understand very much about, but was now going to look around for a lower price. When you sell only on product features, you leave yourself open to price shopping by your prospect.
There’s a new method of selling that is much more effective. It’s called customer focused selling. Simply stated customer focused selling is first finding out what the customer wants and then providing the solution for his or her situation. Sound simple, well it is. Yet it is surprising how few
salespeople practice this method. Perhaps it’s because they spend so much time learning about the hardware and software features they sell, that they would burst open if they couldn’t tell their prospect all they know. Another reason is that salespeople sometimes (too often) would rather talk than listen to their prospect.
Customer focused selling says that the customer does most of the talking. But, how does the customer do most of the talking if he or she doesn’t understand the products or the technology? The customer may not even understand what his needs are. The salesperson must probe and ask the right questions in the right sequence to determine the customers business needs and personal wins.
We think sales professionals should ask good open-ended questions and probes to learn about their prospect’s needs, priorities and goals. Probes start with an action verb. Tell me about...; Talk a little about...; Describe if you will...; and, Give me a little background on...
Open-ended questions ask the listener for more specific information. Open ended questions begin with words like what, when, how, where, why, and when. They ask for people’s opinions, facts and feelings. They open the conversational door. They are similar to probes, but more focused. Use them interchangeably with probes. Some examples are, “What results are looking for in a new supplier?” “ What makes that business issue so important to you?”
Our experience shows that ‘what’ questions tend to be best overall. ‘What’ questions enlarge the comfort zone of the
listener and raise the effectiveness of the salesperson. Television’s Barbara Walters, Oprah Winfrey and Ted Koppel are three of the best interviewers today. They are worthy of study.
Closed ended questions have there place, but salespeople must be careful. Close ended questions restrict the listener’s response to single word answers; yes or no, black or white, this or that. Closed ended questions are necessary to gain agreement from your listener. They can also be helpful when used in combination with an open ended probe or question to help a tight lipped person start talking. Ask a closed ended question then follow up with an open ended probe or question
To get your listener to be more receptive to your probe or question, try to cushion it with a softening preamble. You might try, “May I ask you a question? “, or, “In your opinion, what factors do you consider most important in selecting a new supplier?”
It is also vitally important to listen actively, take notes, provide feedback when your prospect is responding to your questions. All to often, salespeople will ask a good question, and then not listen carefully to the answer. Even worse, they will appear disinterested, or finish sentences for their prospect. This hardly builds credibility and trust with the prospect.
For communication to really be effective, it must be two way. Effective listening largely depends on the clarity, style of speech and the tone conveyed by the person sending the message, as well as the ability of the listener to hear the message. However,
listening effectively is more than just hearing. Listening is the ability to interpret and respond to verbal messages and other cues, like body language, in ways that are appropriate to the purpose.
It is estimated that people filter out or change the intended meaning of what they hear in 70% of all communications. The biggest contributing factor to such miscommunication is not listening for the meaning of the message being communicated.
Salespeople can significantly improve their listening and establish credibility and trust faster by providing feedback. Superior salespeople create an agreeable atmosphere when they meet new prospects.
Our experience shows sales greats have a superior ability to LISTEN and PROVIDE FEEDBACK to their prospects during their sales interviews. Providing feedback during an interview seems simple enough on the surface, but the truth is that few salespeople are truly adept at it.
The importance of listening and providing feedback in sales is striking. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that in a study of 432 corporate buyers, most salespeople were “Too Talkative.” They reported that less than 30% of the salespeople who call on them “really listen,” and over 80% of the salespeople who call on them “waste their time.”
Asking material questions and then listening actively to your prospect is one of the best ways to avoid these problems and differentiate yourself from the “not-so-great” salespeople. Increasing your ability to probe and ask questions and then listening to the prospect’s answers
provides you with the information you need to identify needs, goals and priorities. Armed with this information, you can create a “Customer Focused” solution that addresses your prospect’s issues.
You will not only make sale, you will begin developing a few “customers for life.” This will set you apart from the rest of the field and you will be well on your way to building your business. Good luck and good selling!!!
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