Get a pen and paper and rate yourself and / or your team on the following needs-based selling skills, where 10 is fantastic and 1 is poor.
1. We aim to fully understand the needs of our customers and prospects. (Be honest, customer research says that 80% of salespeople don’t do this.)
2. We don’t mention products when we’re exploring needs. (Never?)
3. We never, ever use jargon or acronyms.
4. We don’t mention price when exploring needs and we only deal with it if the customer brings it up.
5. We prepare questions to ask the customer to ensure that we are uncovering their needs.
6. We listen attentively when the customer is talking, making effective eye contact and giving off positive body language. https://www.hawthornbusinessgroup.co.uk/listen/ ?
7. We never interrupt the customer when he or she is talking.
8. If we uncover potential opportunities when exploring needs, we ‘park’ them until we’ve finished exploring needs.
9. The discussion with the customer is always conversational.
10. We treat objections as a sign of interest.
So how did you get on? If you scored:
- Over 80 – congratulations you’re obviously doing a lot right, your challenge is to continue to hone your needs-based selling skills to keep ahead of the competition.
- 50 – 80 – you’re above average but you need to do a lot more to satisfy your customers.
- Under 50 – you need to critically look at how you’re approaching your customers and how you’re going about understanding their needs.
High performers constantly hone their skills and look to improve. How do you and your team look?