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4. Penetration Selling -- Penetrating Your Prospect's World

Written by: Harry Frisch

Article Overview: The number one barrier that needs to be penetrated during the Qualifying step of the sale is the lack of knowledge of the key motivations a prospect has for possibly purchasing one of the salesperson’s products or services. And the key tool for penetrating this barrier is...

4. Penetration Selling -- Penetrating Your Prospect's World

Let’s take a quick look at the five steps of Penetration Selling, starting with the fifth and final step and working backwards:

The salesperson wants to “Close” the sale. But, before he can Close the prospect on the product (or service), the salesperson ordinarily needs to do a proper presentation of the product, a presentation through which the prospect comes to consider the product of at least as much value as the price he is being asked to pay for it. But before the salesperson can adequately demonstrate how his product is of sufficient value to this specific prospect, the salesperson had better learn what it is about his product that this particular prospect is going to find of special valuable.

In order for the salesperson to discover what the prospect is most likely to consider valuable about the product, the salesperson must penetrate the private world of the prospect’s emotions and thoughts, as they relate to the salesperson’s product. In Penetration Selling, this discovery step is called “Qualifying”. Until the salesperson has a clear understanding of the prospect’s feelings and thoughts related to his product, it is somewhat risky for the prospect to present his wares.

For example, it would be very useful to know that the prospect’s favorite color is blue, and that he detests forest green, before wasting a lot of the prospect’s, and his own, time trying to interest the prospect in a product that is available only in forest green.

For example, if a buying decision will require both the wife and the husband, it would be extremely useful for the salesperson to discover that factor before unrolling his very finest presentation to the wife alone.

The number one barrier that needs to be penetrated during the Qualifying step of the sale is the lack of knowledge of the key motivations a prospect has for possibly purchasing one of the salesperson’s products or services. And the key tool for penetrating this barrier is: Asking the right questions.

In Penetration Selling, when enough key questions are asked and answered before the presentation is begun, the presentation tends to be highly relevant, and the probability of closing that sale tends to rise notably.

Penetrating a prospect’s world, to discover the prospect’s key motivation for potentially acquiring the salesperson’s product, is one of the most powerful steps a salesperson can take during the sales process, and is indeed at the very heart and soul of the Penetration Selling system.

(c) 2007, Harry Frisch, STI Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Penetration Selling is a trademark owned by STI Publishing.

Related Articles
  1. Penetration Selling -- The Five Steps -- An Overview
  2. Penetration Selling -- Penetrating the Marketplace
  3. Penetration Selling -- Penetrating the Prospect's Reluctance to Communicate
  6. Penetration Selling -- Penetrating the Barriers to Commitment
  5. Penetration Selling -- Penetrating the Barriers to Understanding

Article Tags: asking the right questions, discovery, emotions, favorite color, feelings, five steps, forest green, lack of knowledge, motivations, own time, penetration, private world, proper presentation, salesperson, wares



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Re: Email Etiquette - [quote="jvprosperity":24jznj58] The P.S. suggestion is good but it depends on the type of communication (e.g. Autoresponder series verses one off emails to Clients or Prospects)[/quote:24jznj58] Andy, You are right. I was mainly referring to Auto Responder emails. To end a normal email, I attach signatures. Takuya
Simple way to avoid Cold Calling - Gary, A chiropractor I work with hates cold calling (me too!) and he uses a technique to warm people up to using his services - it's so simple! In Sales your dealing with 3 pools of people: 1. Strangers 2. Prospects 3. Returning Customers You need to move people from one pool to the next. We'll concentrate on #1 and #2 as it's most relevant to your question. My Clients does the following (you just have to tailor it to your situation - be creative). My Client (we'll call him Bob) Bob leverages his time and resources to only get people that need his offer (pain relief) to put their hand up. Dealing with Strangers can get expensive and they don't like to be told what to do as they have no trust or relationship built with him. So to get Strangers to put their hands up he writes up an offer with a free report on a particular pain relief - let's say lower back pain (note: he can simply just change lower back pain to neck pain and have a new report). and uses multiple marketing vehicles to promote the Free report - magazines, newspaper, forums, postcards, private clinics etc. The only people picking up this information are the very people Bob would like as customers as they have Lower back pain. Bob's Free report ends with him stating his services and includes a Free in-house Consultation with no obligation. You'd be surprised at how easily Bob converts Strangers into Prospects. Note: They become prospects when they ask for the Free Guide and in exchange provide their contact details. This gives Bob unlimited opportunity to contact them for the Free in-house consultation with no obligation to continue using him. At this stage Bob's ability to close the sale lies in his office providing good customer service, Bob's ability to help the prospect and provide value at the free in-house consultation. Notice, he hasn't had to pick up the phone to COLD-CALL his Stranger pool or his Prospect pool. Hope that example helps to increase your prospecting!
Re: Kevin's Case Study #10 - When to become an entrepreneur? - When the bug bite you. A lot of successful entrepreneurs started in their teens or at school. Selling sweets to fellow students or lemonade to firends in the neighbourhood.
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