sales-process-3A Russian businessman walks into a Swiss bank in Geneva and asks for a $100 loan. He volunteers his luxury Mercedes car as collateral. With collateral that good, the bank manager automatically approves the loan. A year later, the Russian comes back and repays the loan along with the 10% interest and asks for his car. The puzzled bank manager dares to ask him if he really needed that $100 bad enough to leave his luxury car at the bank for a whole year! The Russian replied, “No, but where else in Geneva could I find such a great parking place for just $10 a year while I traveled overseas?”

That should put a smile on your face as we pick up where we left off last time and look at the second article of the buyer’s constitution.

Article Two – Buyers have problems, meaning they need problem solvers and not just solution providers

sales-process-4Occasionally, company sales training overemphasizes solution selling and underemphasizes problem solving. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to sell bundled services or products, but just because you’re selling packages doesn’t make you a problem solver.

So have you completed your due diligence concerning the problems your prospect needs to resolve? Is the buyer having trouble getting the incumbent provider to show up when they are supposed to, or could it be that their service or product just isn’t effective?

Remember that prospects buy stuff from you because they believe your solution will solve their problems. If you’re just providing solutions alone, return to the Exploring step and ask additional surgical questions to determine the exact location of the pain.

Article Three – Buyers sometimes choose to live with problems

sales-process-5Salespeople often misjudge by assuming that a buyer with a problem is a buyer that is committed to acting on that problem, and here is an example of what I mean:

Let’s say you meet a real friendly buyer at lunch one day who discovered your occupation from a casual conversation with a friend. He admits being a customer of one of your competitors, and in the same breath shares that he absolutely hates the company, and is not at all satisfied with their performance.

You ask him if he would like a free assessment from you and his response is positive. You spend an hour, between looking around and making a presentation, only to get turned down after asking him to change providers and use your company.

You remind him of his stated feelings toward the current provider. The man says he told the truth, and that he rarely receives a correct bill, and when he needs service, it takes multiple phone calls to get the service rep to show up. He then goes on to state he just can’t change companies because this vendor is the brother-in-law of the company owner, and blood is thicker than water.

You just learned that people choose to live with some problems, with no personal motivation to change and override their hatred for what they now have. The mistake the salesperson made was in believing that, hates the company, means, committed to change.

The real problem wasn’t uncovered until it was too late. Proper questioning upfront would have revealed these circumstances and saved the rep a lot of time and effort. This scenario reminds me of the Hanes underwear ad, where the inspector on the assembly line says, “They don’t say Hanes until I say they say Hanes!”

Translation: It isn’t a problem until the prospect says it’s a problem. Oftentimes you need to learn more about problems like these before successfully navigating them.

sales-process-6There seems to be three important takeaways from these buying “articles”:

1. You can’t force buyers to move faster than they want.

2. You can’t assume your solutions will solve their problems.

3. You can’t assume they will even act on a problem.

I hope you have noticed that the way to break the code on all three of these involves in-depth questioning and active listening. 

To help avoid the agony of defeat, here are some questions you might ask during an assessment that could be very helpful in light of what’s been discussed:

“What is your timetable for getting this taken care of?”

“If I find something that you agree should be corrected, is there any reason that you wouldn’t follow through and have the work done?”

“Is there anything going on behind the scenes at your business that would keep you from taking action on your timetable?”

“What causes you the most pain regarding your current ___________ service?

Would you try my needs-based solution to eliminate that pain if it seems reasonable to you?”

The focus of all these questions is “YOU” (the prospect) because it doesn’t matter what you (the seller) think. The buyer is the decider and the final authority during the sales…I mean the buying process.

Go ahead and fix the brakes on the pickup now, before the next call comes in over the radio.

©2015 Robinson Training Solutions, LLC