In Sales, Silence Is Golden The magic to selling is learning your client's actual pain points. You do that by listening more than you talk.
By George Deeb •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
I have written dozens of useful how-to lessons for driving sales, but perhaps none is more important than this one. This is the day that you learn that driving sales has very little to do with what you have to say. It has everything to do with what your client has to say.
The magic sauce to closing a transaction is knowing how to ask probing questions, then sit back and listen. Keeping your mouth shut is typically a really hard concept for a salesperson to grasp. But, when they do, jewels of insights about your customer and their real pain points will quickly rise to the surface the more they say.
Your product is less important than solving pain points.
A salesperson's first instinct is to pull out a demo of their product and start talking about all the bells and whistles built into the features and functionalities. [Insert Yawn!]
Related: 7 Elements That Will Take Your B2B Sales Product Demos From Lifeless To Inspiring
First of all, you never lead with the what, you always lead with the why your product can help them to drive more revenues, cost savings, customer experience improvements or whatever. But, most importantly, you never blindly open a pitch until you know exactly what your client's pain points are.
Identity your client's pain points.
In order to learn your client's pain points, you have to start by asking them what they think they are. In some cases, the client's will know exactly what they are trying to improve in their business, as it relates to your product.
But, in many other cases, your client will not even know they have a problem. You will need to educate them on the problem they have. Moreover, be sensitive to the fact many customers will not want to admit they have a problem, keeping their cards close to their chest for negotiating advantages. It may be up to you to tease it out of them.
Ask probing questions.
A good salesperson knows how to ask the right questions, ones that will help them get to the meat of their client's real pain points. Sometimes you can tackle the question head on, like "tell me more about what you don't like about your current product?" Then, when ready, focus your pitch specifically around those elements they most care about.
But, sometimes you need to get to the answer through the back door. Maybe questions like, "Can you tell me more about the conversion rate you are seeing with your current tool? I can help benchmark that to what I am seeing with our other clients."
That question can go in many directions: (1) they may not know their conversion rate (pain point); (2) they will certainly be curious what their peers are achieving, in comparison to themselves (pain point); and (3) any smart manager will want to learn how to improve their business if they are lagging behind (pain point).
Related: Want to Build Better Products? Own Your Customers' Pain.
Either way, the more probing questions you ask, the more intelligence you gain to craft a perfect pitch that exactly addresses your client's needs. Your insights will flow back to your company's product development team, for them to build additional features into your product, that can help next year's upsell with that client.
Consider a case study.
I was working with a social media listening company. This was a relatively new industry, compared to old-school market research based on human focus groups.The sales team needed to help educate and entice its clients with questions like: (1) did you even know you could glean market research intelligence from social media; (2) would you be interested in listening to billions of social media conversations, to bubble up the three most important insights your customers are saying about your brand (versus asking the 100 people in face to face focus groups with expensive travel costs to ten different cities); and (3) did you know you are spending $1 million a year on traditional market research, and we can get you 10 times better insights for only 10 percent of the price?
Not once did I say: look at this cool feature or functionality of our product, or pull out my demo. You get to that later, after they are already drinking the Kool Aid at the strategic, higher level. Then the product sets the hook.
Open your mouth only to ask questions.
If you jump right into pitching your product, your odds of closing the sale are going to materially decrease. Why? Because you have no idea yet, what your client actually needs. I argue you should not even pitch your product at all in the first meeting. Build a relationship with them first, asking the key questions and learning their pain points, and then set up a second meeting that specifically addresses their most pressing needs. This way, your odds of closing the sale will materially increase.
Related: Want to Keep Your Clients Happy? Listen Closely.
The biggest liability most entrepreneurs have is "diarrhea of the mouth," when it comes to peddling their product. All that does is put your customers to sleep in that first meeting. And, that first meeting is the most important, to making sure you get the next meetings and eventually the sale! So, the next time you want to open your mouth in a first sales meeting -- it had better be asking questions and not pitching products.
