Welcome to Monday

Is there one thing you can change to dramatically increase the number and dollar value of opportunities you close?

This week I accompanied a salesperson on a call to a potential new customer. I sat back and watched him spent 5 minutes talking about himself, his company, products and what they may be able to do for them. I watched the body language of the prospect – and it was obvious, from about thirty seconds into the meeting, nothing was going to happen.

In the debrief I asked, “What is the biggest challenge you have in you territory?”

“I can make appointments – but I just can’t seem to uncover opportunities – even when I know there is a perfect application for our products” he stated

In my first sales role (1981) I was assigned the role of introducing a new range of filing solutions to the market. Being young and inexperienced I took the companies sales tools and slide show (in those days it was 35mm colour slides). The key feature of the product was it reduced floor space requirements by 40%. I made five or six appointments a day to run the slide show and tell the message.

After two weeks (60 appointments) of ‘showing up and throwing up’ I finally got someone to say they were interested. I got them into the office to see the new style filing system and they purchased. I was so excited. This sale was 50% of my monthly target. All I had to do was keep working the numbers and I would meet my sales target every month.

But what if I wanted to DOUBLE my sales? I didn’t want to have to double my workload.

When the system was delivered I learned an important lesson by asking a simple question. “Just out of interest, why did you decide to purchase this new system?”

“We were about to extend the office to accommodate a new doctor. Now we can fit him into the practice without the expense of adding another room.”

Wow – I had never even thought about this. I asked “Is this a common problem?”

It turned out it was. I started to ask simple questions before I turned on the projector like, “Have you ever found a time when you needed more room but did not want to go to the expense of a extending the premises? Or Moving?”

All of a sudden, for no additional effort, I was getting three times as much interest and of course three times as much commission.

Most salespeople know they need to invest time to find out their prospects needs. In fact, many companies will give sales people a ‘top ten’ list of needs most likely to be encountered. However, by walking into a prospects office and making a polished presentation all you are doing is ‘throwing up’ with the hope that in the presentation something will hit a point of pain and you ‘get lucky’.

Research tells us that the most common reason people dislike salespeople is because of the perception that they are just dumping product. All you have to do is think about what you hate most about what salespeople do to you and it is likely to be ‘throwing up’ without understanding.

Help your prospects discover their own needs and link them to your product and service. When they think they have made the discovery, and not you throwing up in their face, your opportunity turns white hot. There are three reasons people buy;

• People buy solutions to problems
• Avoidance of pain
• Potential opportunities

Nothing more, nothing less. No matter how 'slick' we are if there is no business problem, no pain or opportunity nothing will happen!

So, is there one thing you can change to dramatically increase the number and dollar value of opportunities you close?

The answer is ‘Yes’ and it is a simple change. Just ask questions.

Are you using questions to link the avoidance of pain, or your client’s potential opportunities, directly to what you sell? Or are you letting your client make the link themselves?

Prepare three questions, which make no reference to your company or brand, that will help link business value to your product or service. Use these questions on every appointment.

Being prepared with great questions will help you uncover opportunities even in the toughest of markets. More importantly, your new clients will think they discovered it all by themselves. Just watch those commissions grow.