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Sales Tips for Commercial Salespeople and Sales Managers – How to Influence Prospects and Earn Sales by asking Effective Questions

Guest post by: Michael Schell

Article Overview: One of the top ways you can influence potential customers to buy from you is to master the art of developing and asking effective questions. Your questions should uncover relevant business issues and help the prospect determine if there are any costly problems worth solving.

Sales Tips for Commercial Salespeople and Sales Managers – How to Influence Prospects and Earn Sales by asking Effective Questions

Let’s examine one of the top ways you can influence potential customers to buy from you (assuming there is a legitimate fit).

Don’t go to a first-time sales meeting to make a presentation. Instead, prepare for your meeting by developing effective questions based on research you’ve done on your prospects industry, company, current situation etc. Your questions should uncover relevant business issues and help the prospect determine if there are any costly problems worth solving.

To start, you need facts, many of which can be researched in advance. (Never ask decision-makers questions you can answer on your own time). This level of preparedness demonstrates your respect for the buyer’s time and plays a big role in earning their business.

Scenario

Let’s say you’re selling multifunction printers and digital copiers etc. You made a cold call and set an appointment with the VP of finance. You then ask the VP if you could speak to the office manager to better prepare for the meeting. The VP gave you the manager’s name and you ask typical fact-based questions about how many copiers they have, brands, model numbers etc.

A week later at the meeting with the VP you ask, “What’s your single biggest challenge when it comes to controlling costs associated with your copiers, faxes, printers and scanners?”

The VP leans back and thinks a moment before replying, but his reply is lengthy and noteworthy...so you take notes. (You will refer to these notes later when you type the meeting summary to email to the VP).

The VP said the copier on the 2^nd floor broke down frequently and print quality was inconsistent. As a result, some 2^nd floor staff frequently took the elevator to the 4^th floor copy room. To determine if there were any costly consequences to this issue, you ask, “When you add it all up, how much time is wasted travelling between floors?” and, “What other problems might be caused by staff traveling between floors?” Later in the call you ask, “Other than copy quality, if you installed a state of the art copier, what do you think the biggest benefit would be overall?”

The VP estimated it cost $300.00 a month to have staff traveling between floors, and mentioned some employees complained vocally about the copier. The VP explained the lease for the copier hadn’t expired; hence there was no budget for a new one.

Outcome

Your role is to help the prospect identify if the cost of the problem is greater than the cost of the solution. The cost of a problem can include soft costs which can be hard to measure. I.e., low employee morale leading to reduced productivity and employee turnover etc. It’s a good idea to ask the decision maker to try and assign an estimated dollar value to soft costs.

In our scenario, a replacement copier leases for $500.00 per month, and the VP estimated it costs $300.00 month to have staff traveling between floors. But your questions illuminated the negative effect the old copier had on employee morale and productivity, and although the VP was unable to assign a dollar value to these soft costs, he was painfully aware that the cost of the problem was greater than the cost of the solution. Focusing on the big picture, he found a way around the budget and went ahead with the upgrade.

As Ben Feldman, the world’s top life insurance salesperson said, "Doing something costs something. Doing nothing costs something. And, quite often, doing nothing costs a whole lot more!"

Ben also said, "The key to a sale is an interview, and the key to an interview is a disturbing question."

Enough said.

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Article Tags: asking effective questions, b2b sales, sales jobs, sales managers, sales managers, sales skills and techniques, sales tips, salespeople, salesprocess



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