Sometimes finding out what a person is thinking is the hardest part of the sales process. Thank goodness business expert Tessa Stowe knows how to help you get your prospects to tell the truth!
When you talk to your potential prospects, do you feel they are not telling you the whole truth, and are even holding out on you? They seem to be giving superficial answers to your probing questions and leaving out a lot. You often feel that your conversations just skim the surface of what is really going on.
Instead, wouldn't it be great if your prospects really opened up and gave you really in-depth answers to your questions? How much would it help you if they told you what they really thought and what they really felt? Just think how much easier that would be, and imagine the positive impact on the speed and volume of your sales.
So how do you get a prospect to open up and tell you the whole truth? You have to change yourself! You must realize that you set yourself up for how your prospects respond to you. It's all the result of knowing how you present yourself and interact with them.
Suppose your intention is to make a sale when you have a conversation. So you ask your questions to get something - a sale. Your prospects will easily pick up that you are trying to get something, and they'll automatically try to protect themselves. So they'll withhold information from you, and that will make it much harder for you to get a sale.
Now suppose you ask questions and you are not really listening. Instead, you are already thinking about what to say next. Your prospect will quickly know that you are not listening. They'll conclude that there is no point in talking or explaining - so they won't. They'll say as little as possible - or maybe throw in some curve balls - so you can soon be on your way, and hopefully will not return.
Get the point? Perhaps you think that to sell, you need to act in a different way than the person you really are. For some reason, you believe you have to act like a "salesperson." Your prospect will pick up intuitively that you are not being authentic. As a result, they won't trust you, and they won't want to do business with you.
Instead of setting yourself up for failure in this way, just imagine the opposite. Now your intention is to find out if you can help someone. Now you are sincerely interested in both the answers to your questions and in really understanding them. Leave all the chatter in your head behind and be fully present in the conversation. Just be your authentic self.
What happens? How does that make you feel about having a sales conversation? How do you think it will make your prospects feel when they pick up on your changes? You'll both feel more relaxed. They'll feel you are authentic and that you really do care about giving them help instead of just getting a sale. In return, they will give you the kind of answers you need to really help them.
So before your next sales conversation, set yourself up to find out the whole truth. Change your sales approach, and watch how your prospects respond to the authentic you!
Tessa Stowe teaches small business owners and recovering salespeople simple steps to turn conversations into clients without being sales-y or pushy. Her FREE monthly Sales Conversation newsletter is full of tips on how to sell your services by just being yourself. Sign up now at www.salesconversation.com.
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