Believe me, listening is a skill and it needs to be practiced.
First, prompt your prospective customers with open – not leading – questions. Then, open your mind and forget your sales agenda for a moment.
Most prospects will tell you exactly what they want, but the message is missed by the sales person in three different ways:
- The sales rep is just waiting for their turn to speak so the “want” of the customer does not register in their brain.
- The salesperson hears the want, but just runs right over it with their own agenda, or the sales person doesn’t write the customer’s want down so it disappears almost as soon as it is stated.
- They hear the want, acknowledge the customer’s want, but then they fight it – the salesperson literally tells the customer that they don’t want what they just said they wanted.
This happens all the time in human communication – not just in sales situations.
Stay tuned for more quick tips on SALT 7 Sales Training.