From Selling Power’s latest sales manager newsletter – Does Your Needs Development Need Development?
One of the important early steps in the sales process is uncovering a prospect’s needs. Unfortunately, most reps take that step literally and ask a prospect about his problems and challenges, then check off that step and move on to the next one.
And later in the article:
Freese just worked with a group of reps from a major, global software company who said they were trained to develop needs by asking, “And what else is important to you?” until the prospect ran out of answers. And then they figured they had all the needs.
These approaches don’t help you, don’t help the customer and, most critically, do only a superficial job of uncovering needs.
These approaches stand out in a horrific manner – they appear to be just what they are, “moves” or “tools.” Most people have experienced a clumsy salesperson with pathetically preplanned moves masquerading as helpful questions. An acoustic guitar in the hands of Eric Clapton is a wonderful instrument. That same guitar in the hands of my 7 year-old son is, well, not wonderful.
“Uncovering prospect’s needs” is qualifying – the foundation of all successful selling. Questions still need to be asked and detailed information gathered to determine how strong of a prospect the salesperson is pursuing. The author provides a suggestion:
To set yourself apart and to delve into the deeper layers of customer needs, you must bring something of value to the conversation, says Freese.
True, but sometimes it is simply a matter of knowing how to have an open, straight-forward conversation. I think the author hits on the real issue in that salespeople simply check off their questions without having a clear understanding of the prospect’s purposely-superficial answer.