How To Uncover Customers' Needs Painlessly

Working on the basis that you are dealing with the "MAN" (the person with the
Money, the Authority and the Need), you must very quickly assess if you have a
potential prospect or not. In other words, can their needs be met by the products
and services you have to offer?
It may not always be obvious to the prospect that they can use your products,
but let's say your industry experience tells you that they can. In this instance, we
are looking for an opportunity to uncover your potential customer's needs. You
cannot create needs -- but you can uncover them.
The key to uncovering needs lies in good questioning techniques. Questioning is a
skill that requires much practice and concentration, but once mastered serves you
well.
Sell, Not Tell
Most emerging salespeople talk too much. "They're good talkers; they must be
salespeople," or, "All you need to be a salesperson is the gift of the gab," are
often heard misnomers. Most prospects, at the sales stage, even come to expect
that a salesperson will probably talk at them, for too long and about very little,
especially their needs.
You want to do the unexpected with your prospects and sell, not tell. Do
remember that customers and prospects are most comfortable when they are
part of the process and not part of the audience.
Listen, Don't Talk
If you are talking, you are not listening! If you do not listen, you will never find
out enough information about the prospect or their needs. Apply the 80/20 rule:
You should use questioning techniques so that the prospect is doing 80 percent of
the talking and you are doing only 20 percent. God provided us with two ears and
only one mouth, and we should use them in that order.
Uncover Needs, PainlesslyRarely do you receive information unless you ask for it. You need information to
sell your services or products and look for future sales possibilities. Skillful
questioning means that you do not seem to be imposing on the prospect by
asking too many questions.
Maintain Control
Using questioning techniques, you can control the prospect in almost any given
situation. You can guide the prospect toward acceptance of your solution. Should
you need to, you can use questioning techniques to regain control.
Probably the single-most important skill that a salesperson can possess is a good
questioning technique, and it is certainly one of the most underestimated and
underused selling skills. Several other sales techniques also rely heavily on your
ability to ask questions effectively.
Types of Questions
There are basically two types of questions, open and closed (sometimes called
indirect and direct). Open questions are used to get people to open up and
provide information, while closed questions are used to solicit commitment and
will prompt a yes or no answer.
Once again, our 80/20 rule comes into play. You should analyze your questioning
so as to make sure that you ask 80 percent open and 20 percent closed
questions.
Unfortunately, closed questions are easier to ask, and if we have a compliant
client, we lapse into the bad habit of reversing the 80/20 rule and asking mainly
closed questions. When you ask closed questions, even with the compliant client,
you are doing yourself a great disservice. It will be as much by luck as by
judgment that you are getting any information at all, and what you do find out
will be limited.
Once the art of asking open questions is mastered, we take the types of
questions and expand and define them a little further, so that we can uncover
and then develop needs.Open neutral questions: These get uninfluenced and non-specific answers.
Open leading questions: For long, influenced, specific answers.
Closed questions: Used to solicit a short, influenced answer, usually just yes or
no.
The Funnel Technique
There is a questioning technique, or rather a structure to use the technique
within, called the funnel technique, which keeps you on track as you guide your
prospect toward your service or product offering once you have uncovered their
needs.
The technique relies on you using the prospect's own words back to him or her,
and you must take notes. You will need to remember what the prospect says both
now and possibly well into the future, so do not rely on your memory
There are four steps to the technique, but that does not necessarily mean that it
will always be only four questions:
1. Motivate; say why you are asking the questions
2. Open neutral questions, to get non-specific, unbiased information
3. Open leading questions, to get specific, biased information
4. Summarize and gain commitment with closed questions
Step One
The first step is to motivate your potential customer. You are going to hit the
prospect with a barrage of questions, so you want to prepare them for it. The
best way to do this is with motivation, not justification. You might consider using
something they said to provide some positive stroking.
For example, you might make reference to the size of their company or
department. They will be on the edge of their chair waiting to tell you about it in
more depth! Be careful not to sound too patronizing, but top salespeople aregenuinely interested to learn as much as they can about their client's or
prospect's business and are very good at creating rapport.
Step Two
Now that you have them relaxed, you can begin to probe for information, pegs to
hang the sale on and hot buttons. You want to find out as much as possible
without leading or influencing the prospect. You want to encourage them to talk.
You could ask them, for instance, how their company was structured or what the
partnership does. Never use closed questions or be too specific at this stage.
At the second stage you will more likely than not get several pieces of valuable
information. You must take notes, because you may want to go through the
funnel with each piece of information, maybe several times.
Step Three
Once you have started to gather information and have uncovered the hot
buttons, use open, leading questions to pinpoint specific areas that you want to
explore, exploit or lead the prospect into. Again, during Step 3, do not use closed
questions.
Step Four
Now you summarize using the prospect's own words and information, so as to get
their commitment of your understanding of the situation or their needs. You then
wait for the commitment, and go back to step one.
A Powerful Selling Tool
Questioning using the funnel technique is one of the most powerful selling tools
available to you. The key to its success is to practice using it. First of all, work on
your open questions, and then start to consciously differentiate between open
neutral and open leading questions
When you become skillful with this technique, selling becomes a lot easier, and
making small orders large orders is easier too! You can make the prospect ask for
the products or services you have to offer.