Selling Issue: Avoid Lowering Your
Price
Consultative Selling: The Questions to ask
to avoid lowering your price
by Maura Schreier-Fleming
Maura Schreier-Fleming works with business and sales
professionals on skills and strategies so they can sell more and be more
productive at work. She is the author of Real-World Selling for
Out-of-this-World Results. She is the principal of Best@Selling and can be
reached at info@BestatSelling.com or
972.380.0200.
Sales miracles do occur. In 1995,
I was brought into a distributor’s account where they were having
equipment problems. I planned to begin the sales call by discussing
a product that could solve their problem. As I suggested the product
and before I could go into any detail, my customer said, “Send me
some.” I made the sale without discussing my product! A sales
miracle had just occurred and I had only waited almost twenty years for
it. If you don’t have twenty years to wait for your sales miracles
to occur, read on about consultative selling.
What customers
buy. You can
learn what problems exist at your customers by questioning and
listening. Then you need to understand the features (what your
product/service does) and benefits of what you sell ( what your
product/service does for your customers.) Customers buy benefits,
not features. If you are selling widgits, a feature is that your
widgits are machined more precisely than your competitors’ widgits.
Learn to think of your product in terms of translating features into
benefits for your customers by adding “This means that…” to the feature
statement. The benefit statement is “Our widgits are machined more
precisely than our competition. This means that your reject ratios
and production costs decrease when you buy our widgits.”
It is important in
consultative selling to present your solution to your customers only after
they understand the magnitude of their problem. I believe you should
begin talking about your product only after your customer identifies 3
needs. Listen carefully for words such as ‘I would really like it
if…, I want…,’ or ‘I need…’ which signify underlying
needs.
It’s as simple as ABC…
D.
Consultative selling starts with what you know ABOUT (A) your
customer. Rather than learn about your customer during the sales
call, prepare before the meeting by reading their annual report or
checking out their web site. Don’t waste your questions with
acquiring basic information. A good opening question can allow your
customer to talk comfortably about their business. The next step is
to find out what’s BAD (B) at the account. When things are going
well, customers see no need to change so a sale is less likely to
occur. If something can be improved or better yet, needs to be
improved, there is a higher probability of a sale. A question like
“And is that working as well as you’d like?” on an area your customer
mentioned can uncover the problem areas. Next develop CONSEQUENCES
(C) of the bad situation. Figure out what the problems are costing
your customers. If lack of performance skills is the problem, the
consequences could be downtime, higher employee costs from turnover, lost
sales or decreased customer satisfaction. The last step is DESIRE
(D). You must make your proposed solution desirable so your customer
feels a sense of urgency to implement it and buy from you. Desirability
can be demonstrated by showing how the benefits from the solution far
outweigh the costs to implement.
Buy low, sell
high.
Delivering a value-driven message rather than a product-driven message
will be better received at higher levels in an organization. Given
the choice of selling to a buyer, a Purchasing Manager, or a Plant
Manager, always choose to sell at the highest management level.
Remember, the higher you sell, the better prepared you must be with
knowledge about your customer and the value of your solution. Your
consultative selling strategy will be best received at the highest
levels. At higher levels, the scope of management’s responsibilities
allows them to see their company’s broader needs.
You may not get a sales
miracle when you use consultative selling, but you will certainly shorten
your sales cycle. When my sales miracle occurred I was dumbfounded
that a customer would buy so quickly with so little effort on my
part. I quickly recovered my composure and asked another question…
“Mr. Customer, what else would you like to buy?”
To have Maura speak at your next sales meeting or
conference:
Please contact me:
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