Part 2
Having built rapport, leveraged our credibility statement to receive permission to ask questions and having designed our questions with the buyers four key interests (Primary, Criteria, Other, Dominant) in mind, we are ready to apply the questioning technique.
Prior to that though, we still have two more filters to apply before we get into exploratory mode. We need to consider where the buyer sits. Where you sit impacts your perspective and influences your buying point of view. Here are some examples: if you are a User Buyer, you are thinking how reliable or easy is this to use. If you are a Technical Buyer, you are concerned that the spec be a perfect match for the requirements. If you are a Financial Buyer, the typical CFO, then you are worried about the cost relative to the budgeting. If you are an Executive Buyer, the CEO, you are looking at how this solution boosts your strategic objectives. As an astute salesperson, we will need to ask pertinent questions, based on the interest perspective of the buyer.
There is another layer which sits across the perspective filter. Often, we think that the cultural norms are an important consideration in approaching the buyer. Americans are like this, or Aussies are like that, in the case of the Japanese you need to do this and that, etc. Yes, there are certain cultural preferences which are important, the only problem with this type of cultural prism, is that it is pretty much irrelevant from a sales viewpoint. Why? There are vast differences among national groups, so compartmentalization is rather tricky. A typical New Yorker is not the same as someone from San Francisco, or Atlanta, or Houston. So we need to go a bit deeper and consider something more individual for our filter.
A good place to start is with personality styles. Myers Briggs, DISC, etc., there are numerous tools to help us analyse personal style preferences. What ever you use, it needs to be simple in a sales conversation situation. I am not great at holding multiple data points in suspension in my head so I can realize an analytical breakthrough.
I rely on two simple decisions. Decision one, on a scale of low to high, is this person low or high in assertion terms? Decision two, is this person more people or task oriented? With those two snapshots I can try and place the person into one of four preferred styles. Actually, at different times and in different roles, we exemplify all four styles, but we naturally gravitate to one more than the others.
For example, the high assertion/high task style is the Driver. Typical “one man shacho” types, who care more about the outcomes, than the people achieving them. Don’t waste their time with small talk and cups of tea – get straight down to it, offer three alternatives, make a recommendation, get a decision and move on.
The polar opposite it the low assertion/high people style of the Amiable. They worry about getting everyone behind the direction, by really carefully considering how they feel about things. They like consensus and don’t like risk. Cups of tea and “let’s get to know each other” is a basic approach with them.
The low assertion, high task orientation is the technical person – the Analytical. They want detail, data, statistics, proof, validation. So no big picture, macro analysis for them, they want the micro, so you better have your detail ready to go.
The direct opposite is the Expressive. They want to grab the whiteboard marker and draw out strategies, to create ideas off the cuff, to bounce concepts around. Don’t ask them for detailed paperwork because they are bored with the petty details of business paperwork.
More so than national stereotypes, understanding where the buyer is in this quadrant breakdown will go a long way to getting the sale, because you will be “speaking their language” and they will feel you are “just like them”.
Do you have to develop a schizoid personality to be successful in sales? No. All you need to do is switch your communication style for each group. You maintain your own personality, but recognize selling the way you like gets one in four people excited and selling the way the client likes to buy, gets four out of four clients excited.
With all of this preparation in hand (and it takes about a nanosecond to complete this, once you understand their role and their style), you are now ready to start asking the right questions.
A good place to start is to ask them where they would want to see the business. This helps to scope out the ideal outcome, so you need to be working on a solution for them that gets as close as possible to that mental picture they have in their mind. We call this the “Should Be”.
Next we ask them where they see the business right now, the “As Is”. Having established these two focal points we need to design questions which show that the gap between these two points is both huge and fatal. Why huge and fatal? If the gap between them is insignificant then why bother doing anything, why take on the risk of change? If the gap is big, but there is no opportunity cost or no downside to not taking action, then the client will persevere with the current situation, take no action and not buy your services or product.
We hold this part of the questioning until we uncover what is holding them back from closing the gap between the As Is and the Should Be.