Real Reasons - at least 3 questions deep.
Posted by Frank Belzer on Mon, Apr 25, 2011 @ 06:06 AM
As I was traveling last week from East Coast to West Coast and back I had an opportunity to read another great book. I had loved Harry Beckwith's book "selling the invisible" and I finally got to read the follow up "invisible touch" - there are some great object lessons for sales people.
One of the things he discusses is the problem with focus groups - companies assume that the information provided by focus groups is 100% accurate and then make all types of changes to their plans and business model. Unfortunately they are not 100% accurate. Turns out that when people know they are being surveyed you don't usually get the real answer, the person asking doesn't usually dig deeper and as an outcome the findings are off.
This I felt was a great lesson for sales people and I shared it with the group I was training. As sales people you will need to dig several layers deep to get the real answer, the real reason and the information that the prospect didn't just share automatically with everyone else. People need to be good at not only asking questions but asking the right questions and then taking the answers and asking more about each answer.
If you are a sales person do you consistently get to the real reason for doing business?
