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The Need or the Product?

The end goal of a sales position is to get people to buy the product that we are selling. The training and methods that we develop are based around that end, but many times that training actually gets in the way of achieving that end. In many cases, the salesperson is trained in how to sell the product that they have. In our culture today, we have been taught that salespeople are not be trusted, that they are snake oil salesman or used car dealers and are only there until the money transfers hands and then the sales person disappear into the void. The unfortunate truth is that in a lot of situations that is exactly what will happen and the customer has every right to fear that outcome. There is a way to surmount this problem for your clients and it revolves around the actual selling process.

Instead of focusing our product when we are at a sales meeting, the real trick to getting around cultural bias is to listen. We need to sit down and develop our sales system so that it focuses on listening to the customer and learning about them. This is in an effort to really learn and understand the needs and wants that they have that they are looking to have solved. We need to be engaged in the conversation so that we can uncover the actual conditions that need to be met for someone to purchase our product instead of the smoke screens that are going to be tossed up. Once we have uncovers those conditions and really understood them, at that point we can demonstrate our product to the customer in a way that actually solves their problem, meets their conditions. If our product can do that, the customer will feel confident in purchasing the product.

The demonstration is not the only bonus we get out of this need-based selling method. When we really listen to someone, it creates a bond between the two people and that bond breeds trust. We can’t sell anything to somebody who doesn’t trust us, so finding ways to build that trust is vital to the end result. Additionally, this sort of selling method helps us in an emotional capacity. When all is said and done and the customer walks away after purchasing, this needs based selling has made it so that we can honestly look at the situation and be proud of ourselves that we helped someone out with their problems. We don’t have to wonder if we omitted information that would have ruined the sale or somehow tricked the customer into purchasing because we took the effort to understand and address the reasons that they were looking for a product in the first place. These are wonderful benefits to a system that is already more effective at achieving the end goal of making a sale.

So how can you modify your product based sales to be a more need-based sales method?

-Dominic

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