Sales is not Talking
I have often seen that the most common belief amongst sales people is that they believe is “Sales is Talking”. The more you talk, the better salesperson you are. The more you talk in English even if you are not fluent in English, you are a great salesman. This is what results in most of the salespeople talking too much. They don’t stop. Its seen that most of the time it’s about 80–90% of the time, the sales person is talking.
Let’s face it. Most sales people talk too much. This is an absolutely wrong myth and this is the reason, that such sales men seldom get the business closed. When a sales person talks too much, they often not
- At times irritate the customer
- Digress from the issue/sales process
- Sell too much
- Come off as greedy and nervous for business
- Probably sell most of the features/advantages which may not be required
- Are unable to identify the need
- Makes the customer uncomfortable
- Miss to pick up on the buying signals
- Look like unnecessarily persuading the customer.
- Speak more than asking
- Involve customer engagement during this process
- Lead to undersell the product
Customers do not buy your product or service as to how much you know but they buy from those if they see how much you care. The customers tend to buy the product from the people they like. Selling is a process and you need to work on it, so that you actually during the process ask the right questions, so that the need is identified. Rather, the probing should go to the level of understanding the “ need behind the need”. During this process you also tend to build trust and rapport.
Let’s understand that everyone loves to talk about themselves. So, It is true for your customers too. You need to make sure that during the process you make your customers speak and listen to them. You need to be a good listener. The perfect sales person is a good listener, rather a great listener. He or she probes in such a manner that the customer speaks and by virtue of great listening and right probing, the customer tends to share their needs, challenges and wants. While you do so, the customer starts to feel that you care for them. He slowly starts to build rapport with you as he feels you understand him, you understand his business, you understand how important is his needs for his business. He would also share the problems he is facing with your competitor. When you talk more, the customer perceives you as a sales person only. When you talk less, the customer perceives you as a solution provider, a business consultant.
So, the more we listen to our customers, the more we can find out how we can help them. It’s very important for you to become a great listener and practice to do so. Let’s take an example of a doctor. When you go as a patient. The doctor would ask few questions from you but he is actively listening to whatever you say. While he is listening to you carefully, you feel comfortable and you come out with all your problems as well as slowly you start feeling good with the belief that the Doctor understands your problem. Same is the case in selling. At times speaking in the local dialect is a great help. Do not force yourself to only speak in English like many salespeople do. Balance your communication and be an active listener.
Also as a human being or a professional, it’s very important to be a great listener. People tend to like people who can listen to them. This helps you to grow as a professional. Read books or practice to be a good listener. Boosting about yourself or your company with poor listening skills will most of the time make you lose the deal or miss out opportunities which would have come to you otherwise. There are good books on listening skills. Read them. Few of the books you can pick to read is “The LOST ART of listening by Michael P. Nichols“, “Just Listen by Mark Goulston” & “Communicating Effectively by Harvard Business Review”.
By active and patient listening, you will be able to identify the needs, understand the challenges, note down the key issues and also understand why it’s important for the customers’ business. This is when you will be able to map your solutions to give the customer the benefit he is looking for. This will also help you to understand the decision-making process, if any. You will be able to keep it short, precise, simple and to the point resulting in faster favourable decisions.
In nutshell all sales people should listen to the customer 80% and talk 20%. This will help you yield much greater results, better deals and identify more opportunities. Start practising this. You will find a sea-change in the response from your customers and your relationships. Do it now! Make it a New Year Resolution for 2020.
