During a sales meeting, the prospect should be talking and the salesperson listening. This is especially true during initial sales meetings. Typically, however, the opposite occurs. The salesperson feels compelled to talk about as many features, benefits, and unique selling points of his product or service as time permits in an attempt to capture the prospect’s interest.
If the prospect merely wants a rundown on various aspects of your product or service, he can simply read your marketing brochure. Investing time to meet with you would not be necessary.
“Selling” is not about “telling.” It’s about helping the prospect relate your product or service to the satisfaction of his wants and needs. (And, helping him discover needs of which he was previously unaware.) This is accomplished by asking thought-provoking questions and then listening … really listening.
You can educate (and stimulate interest) with a question more effectively than citing features and benefits. “Our software analyzes regional warehousing and distribution costs in relation to regional sales patterns and identifies areas for cost saving. In more than 72% of the studies performed in the last 12 months, we’ve discovered typical saving of 18-34%. Blah, blah, blah.” Informative? Yes. Provocative? No. You might as well hand the prospect a brochure and conduct a read-along.
By asking a question, you can not only inform, but you can engage the prospect. For example: “If you were to analyze your warehousing and handling costs and compare them to your regional sales patterns to determine how much money you are wasting on excess capacity, what do you suppose you’d discover?” Informative and provocative. And, more importantly, it engages the prospect and stimulates a conversation about the usefulness of such an analysis. It gets the prospect talking.
When you get the prospect talking, shut your mouth; don’t interrupt. You can open your ears or you can open your mouth, but you can’t do both at the same time. Let the prospect finish, then ask questions or make comments. And, don’t think about what you’re going to say until the prospect has finished speaking. If you’re thinking about what you are going to say, you are not listening.
You can lose a sale by talking too much. But, you’ll never lose a sale by listening too much.
