Listen Your Customer Into Buying

Don’t you sometimes think of salespeople persuading you to buy something by talking you into it? Yet, truly professional salespeople are more likely to let you talk more than they do. That way they can find out what you need and how they can provide for those needs. So when you think about selling your product or service, think about the questions you need to ask in order to determine how you can help a customer or prospect. If you’re in financial services you probably need to know the prospect or customer’s long-term and short-term financial goals. Your job as seller or solution provider is to help the buyer understand how you can help them. You can do this by asking questions that help the customer see the benefits of working with you or using your products and services, now and in the future. For example, a financial institution might have a way of helping customers expand their small businesses. The banker could ask the customer how he plans to handle expansion of the business when the need arises.

One of the seven habits described in Stephen Covey’s, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, is: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Isn’t that the model for providing the right solution to your customer or prospect? If you ask questions to get customers talking, you will discover what their needs are, or understand them. Then you can help customers understand how your product or service will benefit them.

So often, salespeople start presenting a solution to a customer before they really have all the information they need. Asking questions of prospects and customers should go beyond fact finding to what keeps the customer awake at night; what threats or opportunities does the customer have; what challenges does the customer see in the future?

So once you understand a customer’s needs, should you give him or her a litany of features of your product? Will the customer immediately sign on the dotted line by hearing about all the bells and whistles? Some might, some might fall asleep. Gathering information from customers helps describe what you have to offer in terms of how it will specifically benefit customers or solve their problems. For example, if a customer is buying a car, she might have mentioned taking children to sports practice. You could show her the cargo compartment, pointing out that there is plenty of room for all the sports equipment she has to carry around. Once the customer has agreed to the benefits that you presented, gaining commitment to move forward with a purchase is natural. It doesn’t require a fancy script or twisting the customer’s arm; merely asking the customer to do something that will help her achieve goals, be more successful or experience more happiness or peace of mind.

Listening the customer into buying ensures that you focus on the customer and his or her needs, rather than focusing on your own sales goals. When customers feel you have listened to them, they feel important. This serves to keep customers for life, because they know you are genuinely concerned about helping them solve a problem or achieve a goal.