Listening
Listen for NLP indicators. Everybody has a primary basic learning strategy: visual, auditory or kinesthetic( feeling). People use each of the three strategies in different learning environments. Yet, most people favor one strategy. Determine your customer’ s preferred strategy by listening to the kind of words they use. Talk with them in their NLP favored terms to build rapport more quickly. As an example, the customer who says something like,“ I wonder how this will look on me?” is most likely a visual learner. Talk to that person in visual terms. Say something like,“ Just picture yourself ….” This is called direct or matched communication; you are mirroring your customer. Had you said,“ Feel this fabric ….” You would have had a communication mismatch. This communication matching is very effective in fast rapport building. The more rapport you have with the prospect / customer, the more they will tell you exactly how to sell to them.
Questions
One learns more through asking than one does in answering. Ask and listen, is the formula for selling success. The correct questions, if answered, allow you to hear exactly how to sell to the individual or organization. Asking about needs, wants and desires— along with past purchases will help you to know what product features will deliver the benefits desired. In your questioning, be certain to determine preferred learning strategy quickly and use seeing, hearing or feeling words in your efforts to question prospects and customers.
Benefits
To this day, viewing websites, sales and marketing materials, and listening people talk only about features, causes me great pain. People buy based on benefits; meaning how the product or service makes one’ s life better. Features are those things built into the product or service that assist in delivering the desired benefit. Your customer is always thinking,“ What’ s in it for me?” If you act as a partner to your prospect or customer, you will always focus on talking about how the product or service will make their life better.
Buying Motives
Be a partner by helping prospects and customers to solve their problems— justify their emotional decision to buy through the logic of fulfilling their buying motive( s). Listed below are the six basic buying motives— they should cover most buying situations. Understand how your products and services solve these buying motives and you can be a successful partner with your customer for life.
Different people, in different situations have one or more of the following buying motives. As an example, people generally buy insurance for fear of loss rather than for profit or gain, but play the stock market for profit or gain. Similarly, they buy aspirin and other pain killers for avoidance of pain rather than for pride and prestige. Yet pride and prestige is why most people buy an expensive luxury automobile. Sell to your prospect or customer’ s buying motive and you’ ll close the sale much more quickly.