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Click Board! After Action Review Source The After Action Review is a extremely highly effective technique that helps teams and organizations learn how to achieve excellence. This .pdf file has the basic idea. http://www.fireleadership.g ov/toolbox/after_action_re view/aar.pdf The Art of Conversation Here is a guide for the shy person. What do you say after you say hello? What would you say after you said hello to Paul McCartney? Michael Jordan? Be prepared. http://www.entertainmates. com/experts/conversation. asp |
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Well-Spoken
"Good teaching is
one-fourth preparation
and three-fourths pure
theatre>"
Gail Goodwin
"No one realizes how
beautiful it is to travel
until he comes home
and rests his head on
his old, familiar
pillow."
Lin Yutang
"Good teaching is
one-fourth preparation
and three-fourths pure
theatre>"
Gail Goodwin
"No one realizes how
beautiful it is to travel
until he comes home
and rests his head on
his old, familiar
pillow."
Lin Yutang
ManagerZine Archive Favorite
15. Getting To The Heart of Selling:
Part 1 Find Out About The Customer
After observing and working with master
salespeople for many years and selling my own
company’s consulting services for over 25 years, I
believe that there are five ideas about how to find
and solve customer needs at the root of every
sales transaction. If every salesperson focused
on and understood these ideas, they would see
themselves as problem solvers, their central and
critical role in the sales process. All the
techniques, catch-phrases and face-to-face
questioning methods typically taught in training
classes can augment and help implement this
fundamental problem solving role. The key here
and now is to learn the concepts. They are not
difficult to understand. Mastering them takes
practice and coaching.
The five fundamental ideas which ground the
salesperson as problem solver are:
1. Find out about the customer and about all the
customer’s problems.
2. Add value, make a difference.
3. Give the customer options.
4. Make it work.
5. Stay in touch.
We will explore these ideas in the next few
ManagerZines.
Part 1: Find Out About The Customer and About
All The Customer’s Problems
Although it’s obvious that asking questions is one
of the salesperson’s most potent tools, many
salespeople, even veterans, don’t ask enough of
the right questions. Most ask too many of the
wrong questions.
Remember, the premise is that if a salesperson
can find a broad array of customer needs, then he
or she can offer a solution which addresses many
of them. That takes asking the right questions in
the right way.
Now here is a subtle point. It’s common for
inexperienced salespeople to ask many questions
that gather a lot of information, but don’t really
contribute to solving the customer’s broad array
of problems. The result are pages of notes which
capture facts but not the needs that could have
been surfaced.
Why?
For one thing, most new salespeople are told to
ask a lot of questions, and they do. But, the
process is not pleasant to watch or experience:
the questions are often random, and the customer
usually winds up feeling like they have been
interrogated.
Probably more important, the reason for asking
questions may not be totally clear to the
salesperson. After all, the salesperson is looking
for the customer to tell him or her the need so he
or she can describe the product or service.
What’s the big deal?
Consider what kinds of questions a salesperson
would ask is he or she had an expanded view of
what their role was, what they could do for the
customer. That would change the whole
questioning strategy. If the salesperson had a
better handle on the extended and total package
of benefits—all the capabilities of the vendor
organization available to the customer—they
would ask more focused questions and surface
needs they can do something about.
Because of their perspective, master salespeople
can recognize patterns of needs in customer and
ask penetrating questions which get the customer
to see needs they might not have been aware of.
Master salespeople are not shy about probing
how a customer feels about a business need,
capturing and noting whatever emotional energy
the customer has packed into a business
problem. If a customer is not confident, uncertain
or vague about how to proceed, a master
salesperson can tag those personal needs as
critical to solve in the solution.
When a salesperson uncovers and understands a
customer’s business and personal, current and
future needs, he or she is better prepared to
address them comprehensively.
Copyright 2007, Singularity Group, Inc.
15. Getting To The Heart of Selling:
Part 1 Find Out About The Customer
After observing and working with master
salespeople for many years and selling my own
company’s consulting services for over 25 years, I
believe that there are five ideas about how to find
and solve customer needs at the root of every
sales transaction. If every salesperson focused
on and understood these ideas, they would see
themselves as problem solvers, their central and
critical role in the sales process. All the
techniques, catch-phrases and face-to-face
questioning methods typically taught in training
classes can augment and help implement this
fundamental problem solving role. The key here
and now is to learn the concepts. They are not
difficult to understand. Mastering them takes
practice and coaching.
The five fundamental ideas which ground the
salesperson as problem solver are:
1. Find out about the customer and about all the
customer’s problems.
2. Add value, make a difference.
3. Give the customer options.
4. Make it work.
5. Stay in touch.
We will explore these ideas in the next few
ManagerZines.
Part 1: Find Out About The Customer and About
All The Customer’s Problems
Although it’s obvious that asking questions is one
of the salesperson’s most potent tools, many
salespeople, even veterans, don’t ask enough of
the right questions. Most ask too many of the
wrong questions.
Remember, the premise is that if a salesperson
can find a broad array of customer needs, then he
or she can offer a solution which addresses many
of them. That takes asking the right questions in
the right way.
Now here is a subtle point. It’s common for
inexperienced salespeople to ask many questions
that gather a lot of information, but don’t really
contribute to solving the customer’s broad array
of problems. The result are pages of notes which
capture facts but not the needs that could have
been surfaced.
Why?
For one thing, most new salespeople are told to
ask a lot of questions, and they do. But, the
process is not pleasant to watch or experience:
the questions are often random, and the customer
usually winds up feeling like they have been
interrogated.
Probably more important, the reason for asking
questions may not be totally clear to the
salesperson. After all, the salesperson is looking
for the customer to tell him or her the need so he
or she can describe the product or service.
What’s the big deal?
Consider what kinds of questions a salesperson
would ask is he or she had an expanded view of
what their role was, what they could do for the
customer. That would change the whole
questioning strategy. If the salesperson had a
better handle on the extended and total package
of benefits—all the capabilities of the vendor
organization available to the customer—they
would ask more focused questions and surface
needs they can do something about.
Because of their perspective, master salespeople
can recognize patterns of needs in customer and
ask penetrating questions which get the customer
to see needs they might not have been aware of.
Master salespeople are not shy about probing
how a customer feels about a business need,
capturing and noting whatever emotional energy
the customer has packed into a business
problem. If a customer is not confident, uncertain
or vague about how to proceed, a master
salesperson can tag those personal needs as
critical to solve in the solution.
When a salesperson uncovers and understands a
customer’s business and personal, current and
future needs, he or she is better prepared to
address them comprehensively.
Copyright 2007, Singularity Group, Inc.