In the previous article, I underlined the key skills that are vital to communication in sales: the ability to create harmony with your potential buyer and know how to interpret what they say, what they can’t tell you, and even what they can’t tell you.
To do this, you must fully understand your prospect’s learning process, understand what is important to them, interpret the most suitable communication style, and model your behaviour according to each aspect.
Where can you start to improve yourself?
You can never be precise in your considerations if you have no idea what you are talking about. If you’re selling in a specific market context, you must know its criticalities, the products or services you need, and the buying patterns. If you’re targeting different markets, you need to match your value proposition with the needs of each market.
Potential customers can hardly trust you if you cannot prove competent in your and their context; it is better than investing time in acquiring this experience because it will prove very useful.
Being competent doesn’t necessarily mean you have to know everything. It is impossible to see every aspect and every nuance of your prospects’ work scenario, and it is wrong to act with excessive confidence, assuming that you know how to interpret every nuance of the work context.
It is essential to be able to relate and to be able to count on the ability to ask for clarification to understand every situation in depth.
Be aware of what you can’t know and ask for support from prospects by acting transparently. They will appreciate your honesty and learn how to direct and redirect any possible wrong considerations.
The key to successful sales is the ability to ask good questions. If you don’t have a natural curiosity about the context in which your potential customer works, you will have difficulty presenting the fundamental aspects of your offer.
The most skilled communicators are curious people, and this attitude is instrumental in selling. Practice asking, and learn to ask the right questions to be ready when you have to prove that you have been able to place your offer in the exemplary scenario.
Sometimes, prospects make choices or mistakes that can change the outcome of a deal. They may confirm the purchase before you have obtained approval from their managers. Or they may give you the wrong information about a decisive situation.
Yes, they are frustrating situations, and in some cases, they can be very annoying.
However, it is difficult to evaluate a person’s real intentions and understand whether he has deceived us intentionally or by mistake.
Jumping to conclusions without the necessary information can be counterproductive and positively affect the next steps in the negotiation. Therefore, it is better to maintain a trusting attitude and not show hostility towards the person who made the mistake.
It is essential to be willing to believe in the good faith of others. However, it is still being determined that your prospects will be able to demonstrate the same predisposition. So, being sincere is better, especially when answering their questions. This can also mean explaining that you cannot respond adequately or communicate unpleasant news.
Once they trust you, your prospects will share their goals (even personal ones). The best way for this to happen is to be honest. Really.
If you’ve been selling for a long time, it’s easy to build an experience that guides you to make the same gestures in the same way over and over again. And it’s when you’re sure that, once again, that thing will have to be done in the same way that you’ll be surprised if it’s the opposite. Situations change, scenarios change, and—above all—people change.
If you have yet to verify a situation personally and haven’t been provided with information by the person concerned, don’t fall into the simplification of an assumption of truth. Asking an extra question for clarification takes seconds and returns confident feedback. Taking a situation for granted and letting the prospect interrupt you to correct it can have a negative and perhaps irreparable effect.
Many people experience silence with discomfort. Suppose they ask questions and prospects are silent even for a few seconds. In that case, they have a natural predisposition to fill the silence with more phrases and new questions or to provide unsolicited explanations to support their question.
Why not take a break for three to five seconds before you start speaking again? This way, you can avoid interrupting your prospect’s thoughts and clarify that you are open to an open dialogue.
The line between perseverance and persistence is excellent; salespeople must recognize this boundary. Stubbornly calling and emailing without knowing why you don’t get a response is counterproductive and can only annoy and drive customers away.
Try a different approach if you are still waiting to hear a phone call or follow-up email. Instead of repeatedly sending the same email, please change the subject line and contact channel, but only when appropriate. Don’t be pushy, and learn to read situations. This choice may surprise you to discover that an opportunity that seemed lost for good was instead only suspended.
In the previous article, I underlined the key skills that are vital to communication in sales: the ability to create harmony with your potential buyer and know how to interpret what they say, what they can’t tell you, and even what they can’t tell you.
To do this, you must fully understand your prospect’s learning process, understand what is important to them, interpret the most suitable communication style, and model your behaviour according to each aspect.
Where can you start to improve yourself?
You can never be precise in your considerations if you have no idea what you are talking about. If you’re selling in a specific market context, you must know its criticalities, the products or services you need, and the buying patterns. If you’re targeting different markets, you need to match your value proposition with the needs of each market.
Potential customers can hardly trust you if you cannot prove competent in your and their context; it is better than investing time in acquiring this experience because it will prove very useful.
Being competent doesn’t necessarily mean you have to know everything. It is impossible to see every aspect and every nuance of your prospects’ work scenario, and it is wrong to act with excessive confidence, assuming that you know how to interpret every nuance of the work context.
It is essential to be able to relate and to be able to count on the ability to ask for clarification to understand every situation in depth.
Be aware of what you can’t know and ask for support from prospects by acting transparently. They will appreciate your honesty and learn how to direct and redirect any possible wrong considerations.
The key to successful sales is the ability to ask good questions. If you don’t have a natural curiosity about the context in which your potential customer works, you will have difficulty presenting the fundamental aspects of your offer.
The most skilled communicators are curious people, and this attitude is instrumental in selling. Practice asking, and learn to ask the right questions to be ready when you have to prove that you have been able to place your offer in the exemplary scenario.
Sometimes, prospects make choices or mistakes that can change the outcome of a deal. They may confirm the purchase before you have obtained approval from their managers. Or they may give you the wrong information about a decisive situation.
Yes, they are frustrating situations, and in some cases, they can be very annoying.
However, it is difficult to evaluate a person’s real intentions and understand whether he has deceived us intentionally or by mistake.
Jumping to conclusions without the necessary information can be counterproductive and positively affect the next steps in the negotiation. Therefore, it is better to maintain a trusting attitude and not show hostility towards the person who made the mistake.
It is essential to be willing to believe in the good faith of others. However, it is still being determined that your prospects will be able to demonstrate the same predisposition. So, being sincere is better, especially when answering their questions. This can also mean explaining that you cannot respond adequately or communicate unpleasant news.
Once they trust you, your prospects will share their goals (even personal ones). The best way for this to happen is to be honest. Really.
If you’ve been selling for a long time, it’s easy to build an experience that guides you to make the same gestures in the same way over and over again. And it’s when you’re sure that, once again, that thing will have to be done in the same way that you’ll be surprised if it’s the opposite. Situations change, scenarios change, and—above all—people change.
If you have yet to verify a situation personally and haven’t been provided with information by the person concerned, don’t fall into the simplification of an assumption of truth. Asking an extra question for clarification takes seconds and returns confident feedback. Taking a situation for granted and letting the prospect interrupt you to correct it can have a negative and perhaps irreparable effect.
Many people experience silence with discomfort. Suppose they ask questions and prospects are silent even for a few seconds. In that case, they have a natural predisposition to fill the silence with more phrases and new questions or to provide unsolicited explanations to support their question.
Why not take a break for three to five seconds before you start speaking again? This way, you can avoid interrupting your prospect’s thoughts and clarify that you are open to an open dialogue.
The line between perseverance and persistence is excellent; salespeople must recognize this boundary. Stubbornly calling and emailing without knowing why you don’t get a response is counterproductive and can only annoy and drive customers away.
Try a different approach if you are still waiting to hear a phone call or follow-up email. Instead of repeatedly sending the same email, please change the subject line and contact channel, but only when appropriate. Don’t be pushy, and learn to read situations. This choice may surprise you to discover that an opportunity that seemed lost for good was instead only suspended.
