What do you think when asked "Why are you meeting with a customer?"What words or phrases come immediately to your mind? I bet the word "TELL" dominates as your first response. After training and interviewing sales people in various industries and asking them to describe the purpose of the meeting this is how the sales people respond "To meet with the customer/prospect to TELL them about.... And how we can..." This is endemic whether the sales person is meeting the customer face to face or writing to them via email or traditional mail letters.Superb sales people are so customer focused in their mind set that they would respond to the above question completely differently and may have respoded to the above question as follows" To learn about your.... And discuss how...we can assist.... Our support to you is...." The shift is small and you would agree very powerful.Before you start getting defensive and argumentative, sure it makes sense to want to "Tell" your prospective customer, provided what you tell them is persuasive. You must stay in perspective, for that is what a questioning mind set is about.Here is another question. When approaching prospective customers, do you think answers or questions? Take your time, this will determine the type of mind set you have when you are approaching your customer. Remember there is a time and place for answers. As a professional you have to have a questioning mindset, or you may find your self answering before your customer or you are ready, potentially losing control and the sale.Most sales people are reluctant to ask questions and when asked come up with these excuses.1. There isn't enough time: Enough time for what, is my question back to you. Time spent asking questions will help you develop a winning solution more often saving you time and allowing you to focus on your customer.2. I'll lose control. If you are not asking questions you have lost control, so who are you kidding? The person asking the questions controls the call, so if you allow your customer to take the initiative and control the questioning you have lost control and will seldom achieve your objective.3. I don't want to be pushy. This is a favorite of the average and mediocre sales person. It is a cop out! There is nothing pushy about asking questions as you are being customer focused and customers will appreciate that. The right questions show how much you care and how well prepared you are.4. Customers will Burr up and object. Totally incorrect if your questions are well prepared and meaningful. Well prefaced questions will show your customer your level of understanding and preparedness. Funnily enough customers welcome questions to a product dump!5. I don't want to offend my customer. This is an extremely weak excuse as invariably it is the sales person that feels uncomfortable about questioning not the customer. If this is you start sharpening and learning effective questioning skills.6. Questions could raise negative points. Great bring the negative issues out into the open as now you can resolve them, or would you prefer your customer to say " I have to think about it" that comment is a sale loser.7. I am expected to have the answers. This is true if all the customer wanted is product. Extremely few customers just want product, they want solutions. Customers want more than any thing value and perspective, they want your answers to apply to them.This last excuse is an absolute favorite and is used by the majority of pretenders calling themselves professional sales people. These are the folk that give sales professionals a bad reputation, the excuse is:"I'm experienced and already know"These types seldom make sales and always have a reason why the customer did not buy. Making assumptions without checking, validating, questioning and learning will cost you the sale.
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