Spend most of your time asking questions
of your prospects, and you will have the opportunity
to find out if there is a solution or vision that
they want to buy.
When I say solutions or visions,
here's what I mean. People buy solutions to problems
or deep felt pains that they have or fear happening.
People also buy visions that represent the means
of attaining their desires.
Of the two, most people will have
a stronger motivation to solve or avoid a problem
than they will to do something to attain a desire.
Don't believe me? Just look at how many people claim
to dislike or even hate their jobs. Anyone *can*
get a new job or start a new career. Most people
never do though. Why? Because the fear of going
into the unknown or losing their secure paycheck
is more painful than enduring whatever pain or frustration
they might have in the job they claim to hate or
dislike.
Let's say that If you wanted to
sell someone on changing careers. You would need
to first deal with whatever they feared in the process
of changing careers. Only after successfully addressing
this you could ever complete this sale and motivate
them with the exciting possibilities that the new
career offered.
A business might have a need for
a particular product or service that offer. You
look at this business, and you just know that they
need it. It would make real difference to the way
they do business, how they treat their customers,
how much revenue they take in, or how efficient
they are.
None of this matters.
Nope. That is your perception. The
only thing that really matters is whether or not
the people who run this business perceive that something
needs to be changed. Businesses buy something when
they recognize that a change needs to occur to fix
or avoid a problem, or to realize a vision for the
future.
Now, some prospects are walking
pain statements. They'll hand you their problem
right up on a silver platter and ask you if you
can solve it. These tend to be the easy sales. We
love these.
Unfortunately for us, there aren't
enough sales like this in most industries to make
our sales goals off of. Not all people or businesses
perceive that they need to change. Not all buyers
are aware of the problems, pitfalls, or opportunities
that are out there. This is especially true when
you sell an innovative or new product, and people
are not even aware that what you offer exists.
So herein lies the challenge and
the opportunity for us as salespeople (and the reason
why businesses have salespeople instead of a stack
of order forms in their corporate lobbies). We are
paid a lot of money to find the prospects that are
unaware of the problems and possibilities, and to
show them the consequences that await them.
People are motivated by consequences.
This is one of most important things you can learn
in persuasion. Consequences are what people fear
or want most. This is the root motivation for what
people do, or don't do - what they buy or don't
buy.
Earlier I said that by asking questions
of your prospects you will have the opportunity
to find out if there is a solution or vision that
they want to buy. I used the word opportunity specifically,
because just asking questions is not enough.
You must ask the right questions
at the right time. Use questions impotently, and
not only will you not learn what motivates your
prospect, you'll likely hear "I want to think about
it, call in me in a couple of weeks". This in most
cases is just the same as losing the sale.
