WHAT IS THEIR PROBLEM?
By Ron S. La Vine
President of Accelerated Sales Training, Inc.
By Ron S. La Vine
President of Accelerated Sales Training, Inc.
Sales professionals depend on knowing how to ask the right
questions to discover the real needs of our clients. Often
our clients tell us what they would like us to do, such
as, "I need a solution on change management," but
without telling us the ultimate result they want to achieve.
To be truly effective we must be able to help our clients
articulate the cause of the problem and to be able to identify
what would be different if the solution is successful.
Armed with this additional information we can then design
the most effective solution for the problem at hand.
So what are some examples of questions and statements
you can use to open up the prospect to discussing their
problems.
Help me understand. How do you measure your key performance
indicators?
I’d like to learn a little more about. What do you
do when that happens?
Where do you find are the bottlenecks?
How high is the absentee rate?
What are the biggest challenges you are currently facing?
What are your top priorities over the next three months?
Tell me more about that…
Give me an idea how you currently process that specific
type of data?
Please describe how you use spreadsheets?
What do you do when your system goes down?
Please explain your funding process?
Compare for me how your test scores went down last year
and up this year?
In what way do you measure your production?
To what extent has this been a problem?
Go through the steps when your production line goes down?
What happens when a system outage occurs?
These questions are designed to root out the problems,
needs or challenges your prospect is incurring right now.
The next question is one you need to ask yourself. Can
you fix the problem with your solution?
If the answer is “yes” or even a partial “yes” then
you have the basis for closing for an appointment. If the
answer is “no”, you’re better off letting
the prospect know up front rather than wasting their valuable
time or yours.
REPRINT PERMISSION
Ron La Vine, MBA is president and founder of Accelerated
Sales Training, Inc., a sales training firm located in
Oak Park, CA. You can get a special report “41 sales
Tips You Can Use Right Now” AND the free bimonthly
Sales Tips for Selling Success eZine all by signing up
at http://www.astselling.com.
If you would like information on The Secrets of Cold Calling
Success - Live Call Workshops, please call Ron at
1-818-991-6487 or 1-818-519-3852.
Copyright 2009 by Ron S. La Vine and Accelerated Sales
Training, Inc. All rights reserved.
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