From Steve Ingemi
Through my years of sales experience, I have ascertained that it is important to know whether you have a quality customer or a price customer.
A price customer wants to be reassured about price and a quality customer wants to be reassured about quality. One axiom can be used for both customer types.
John, isn’t it nice to know that now you can have all of the best features and benefits of a franchise sign without paying the extra big bucks to get them?
By your prospects reply and his emphasis, you will learn which benefits are of greatest importance. Just find out what they want or need or think they need and sell it to them.
What better way to find out than “simply by asking”. Does it work? It works for me. Okay, so you would like a higher authority’s opinion… first of all there isn’t any but let’s look at a survey that Xerox did.
After observing 500 sales calls under controlled conditions, they found that salespeople that asked 16.4 questions were significantly more successful than those that only asked 9.4 questions. They were somewhat less successful than those who asked 13.6 questions. And, of those that asked too many questions, the customer deferred the decision to another day. So, you should keep track of your questions and halfway through questions fourteen you should quit in midsentence and hand your prospect the sales agreement and a pen!
“Leaders must understand their weaknesses and strengths.” ~Tom Johnson
