...and What it Really Means for Sales -
“Sell me this pen” is a litmus test to see if the person understand what selling is. What is the best response, that the best seller will do instinctively, when asked to sell?
🙋🏼♀️ —> they ASK QUESTIONS. ⁉️
The research is really clear on this.
Top producing sales people ask more questions than their counterparts.
Sales is not pitching. Sales is first and foremost about finding customer pain that your solution can ease. And the first step in finding pain is asking questions.
And Then We Get to Pitch, right…?
Most sales professionals will agree with the idea that sales requires good questioning skills. But it’s often thought of as refining the pitch through questioning. But the truth is customers don’t like being Challenged.
First, one has to persuade customers in sales. There is no getting around that.
…but it’s not enough.
When you’re telling truth to power, (and many sales pitches are a form of truth-telling), power doesn’t always want to hear it. We’re not really truth-seeking animals.
Here’s Jen Allen to reinforce that point.
This the key principle and the key to creating demand for you solution.
people believe in the behaviors they have because they have beliefs and assumptions that underpin it. My job as a salesperson is not to convince someone to change because a buyer convinces themselves to change.
What I can do is introduce new information that gets them to think differently about their beliefs. And assumptions such that they reconsider their behavior, right?
So, HOW YOU DO IT makes or breaks your sale.
What are the options?
- 📊 Facts and figures? (What makes up most value sell pitches) Meh. Sometimes they work. Often they don’t.
- 🫵🏼 Challenging your customer? Good luck with that. It’s so often delivered wrong as to be useless.
To bring a customer real insight, help them think outside their current perspectives. Bring in you and your companies expertise to help.
That’s trusted advisor territory.
Until next week,
Kendall -
Find me on LinkedIn or Book a 1:1 call
Not a subscriber yet? Subscribe here
