Which part of the sales process do technicians and professionals have the most trouble with?

Non-salespeople are being asked to sell more and more in the professional services world. As a professional, your attitude towards sales can either hamper your results, or positively impact your career, depending on which way you decide to go. We’re continuing our new series of Questions and Answers recorded during the recent ESCRS trade show that took place at the Excel Centre in London. Today’s question and answer reflects on a common anxiety held amongst professionals that can be summarised by the question: “What am I going to say about this product or service to them?” and stems from the stereotypes we have built about traditional salespeople with the “gift of the gab”.

Question

Which part of the sales process do technicians and professionals have the most trouble with?

Answer

I think most people imagine that a customer service interaction involves the person who is selling to be talking all the time and they feel quite concerned about filling the space and worrying about what they are about to say. They’ll come right out and say (to me during training) “what am I going to tell this person?”

I think what they miss most of the time is the fact that they need to turn the table on this relationship and begin asking questions. Asking questions first of all demonstrates leadership. It demonstrates curiosity. It demonstrates an interest in understanding before recommending. In so doing it actually lets you off the hook a little bit from not knowing what to say without a prompt.

If you have a process that involves you asking certain questions, you are able to understand a little bit more about what the customer needs and wants, and then when you have that, you are then able to talk about specifically only those things that matter to him (or her).

You don’t have to remember everything about your product or your service. You don’t have to guess. You can specifically identify the things that matter the most, their priorities, and their criteria to buy anything, the motives that they have, and when you do that you can focus your attention and really allow your own creativity to flow forward.

And that is what people really want to do: they want to relax they want to feel like this is a conversation as opposed to a presentation.