Too many people are deadly wrong thinking "Selling the art of Selling"... Actually "Selling is the art of Making People Buy". Sounds like a tiny difference, isn't it?
Unfortunately this is not, at least within a B2B long term relationship, and this is precisely why so many sales people perform so poorly although their are definitely brillant speakers.
Many very outgoing sales people beleive indeed that their best skill is their high ability to speak in public, to explain their company value proposition (that is already way better than describing their product features...), and finally to convince their prospects that they need their products.
What is the most important actually is to understand your "prospect's perception of the reality". This might not be "The Reality", but it is for him/her.
Referring to my Strategic Selling related post, there is a lot of information to discover to really and deeply understand what his/her role is within this project, how he/she perceives the current situation, and what does it mean for him/her (Win-Result concept).
So here is a very simple model to benchmark the way you sell, and to improve it.
In a nutchell, "Listening" is more important than "Speaking". So learn to Shut Up!
- 2/3 of Listening
- 1/3 of Speaking in which:
- 2/3 of Questions
- 1/3 of Affirmations in which:
- 2/3 of Reformations
- 1/3 of decisive arguments (equivalent of 3,7% of overall time!)
"Listening"should be "Active Listening" with eye contact, notes taking, and non verbal confirmation that you are "Getting it". Techniques like NLP could be extremely instrumental in that regards.
Keep in mind that it is more valuable to ask "Open Questions" than "Closed Questions" to discover more facts, opinions and feelings about the current situation.
Although it sounds weird (you might not feel comfortable using it at the beginning), reformulation has the benefit to confirm that you have heard and understood of what has just been said, and to invite and encourage the person you are speaking with to go on and to give you more details. This is a very powerful tool you have to master as it is less intrusive than direct questioning.
As a side note, to make sure you are discovering as much information about your prospect's situation as possible, don't rush to address a proposition. This is a very common mistake to do it too early within the sale process... and discover later, if not too late, that your understanding was extremely partial, and your proposition not optimal (positioning, arguments, price...) at this very time.
Let me know what you think about this simple but powerful model, and share your best practices with me. We all have to learn from others.
