Solving people’s and organization’s problems is ultimately what
business is all about. Effective selling involves defining your
existing or potential customer’s problems. If properly “sold”,
a sales prospect will have his problems solved with your
company’s products or services. To be successful at selling,
you must systematically approach customers with a proven
repertoire of qualifying questions that allows you to clearly
understand your customer’s current business challenges.
In order to most effectively solve your customer’s problems you
have to ask questions, the “right” questions and most
importantly, listen to the answers you get. The best source of
information about a sales prospect’s business problem is the
prospect themselves. However, any seasoned salesperson will
tell you that the customer does not always know what their
problem is, how it happened or how to deal with it. Without a
proven list of problem definition questions, a salesperson has
little chance of achieving sales success.
In every selling situation, there are eight fundamental
questions that must be answered to ultimately generate a
purchase commitment, a solution to your customer’s problems:
1) Does the customer know exactly what the business problem
is? Are they giving you symptoms of a problem or the problem
itself?
2) How long has the problem existed? Is this a temporary
situation or an ongoing challenge?
3) What will happen if the problem continues? Short and long
term ramifications should be explored
4) What has been done thus far to address the problem?
This answer could be your “door opener” later!
5) What were the results of those efforts to “fix” the
problem? Actions taken and money spent should be quantified
here
6) What is the cost thus far of this problem? Here you can
determine what it cost them NOT to have your company’s
products
7) Are there budgeted funds available to “fix” this problem?
If there aren’t, why not and will there be? If not, good
luck!
8) Who is involved and how is the purchase commitment to be
made?
You must clearly understand who the decision makers are and how
the commitment decision is to be made. If you do not, there
will always be “someone else” who will kill your deal within
the organization!
Once you have valid answers to all these questions you can
accurately determine whether the products or services your
company has to offer can cost effectively solve your customer’s
problems. If your products or services can solve your
customer’s problem you now have something to talk about!
Before you begin your sales pitch, your explanation of how your
offerings best meet their needs, be absolutely sure that you
have all the decision makers at your presentation and have
confirmed the money is budgeted to back up their purchases. If
all the key decision makers are not present and you are not
sure the funds are there to continue the relationship your
probability of achieving sales success at this customer has
been dramatically reduced!
One Final Question: Ask for the Order!
You may be wondering why, “Asking for the order” was not one of
the “8 Key Questions to Ask in Every Selling Situation”? When
you know your product or service can solve your customer’s
problem cost effectively, and it is clear they understand and
sincerely appreciate the value of your product or service
offerings to a level of justification that they can, and will,
make a reasonable purchase commitment to you, you have AN
OBLIGATION, not only to your company, but to your customer, to
ask them to buy what your are selling! A simple way to do this
is to ask: “What do you want to do next?” … say nothing more
until they respond.
Effective selling can be as simple as striving to get accurate
answers to these fundamental problem qualification questions.
It is most interesting to experience how systematically going
through these eight questions with your potential customer will
reduce their tendency to generate purchase objections. Also,
there is an interesting relationship or “bond” that
develops between the salesperson and the customer when they are
asked to explain and again experience why it cost so much for
them NOT to have your products or services in their lives!
Today’s successful salesperson is a problem solver. How you
define your customer’s business problems can often be as
important as how you eventually solve their problems. Use these
fundamental problem definition questions as a format for your
next sales call and see what happens. They could be the edge
you need to get that order you thought you would never get!
About the Author:
Mark Smock is 30+ year veteran of the sales profession and
President of
, the FIRST
international business buyer directory of its kind. Business
Buyer Directory provides a non-traditional means for proactive
business buyers to locate businesses for sale worldwide that
meet their exact registered purchase criteria.
