The Science of Sales Success(c) A Proven System for High Profit, Repeatable Results
Authors: Costell J.
 Published year: 2006
 Pages: 71-74/170
Buy this book on amazon.com >>

Why Guess?

Whether they are prerequisites or influencers , filters are as important as goals. You cannot have one without the other. They allow you and customers to determine whether they can achieve their goals—and if you can help them in their pursuits. With filters, like goals, the devil is in the details.

Chapter 5 explains how active listening and questioning motivate customers to supply the details. It will become apparent to customers how these details serve their self-interests.



Summary

  • You want customers to qualify themselves first on whether they chose the right goals and have the ability to achieve them.

  • You qualify your own products on their ability to achieve customers' goals before you mention any specific ones to customers.

  • If you find yourself disqualifying customers more than qualifying them, you should review how you defined market segments.

  • Starting sales calls with a focus on making customers' goals measurable puts them in control and motivates them to share information with you.

  • Filters allow both customers and you to perform a test of reasonableness on whether you both achieve their goals.

  • Filters fall into two categories: prerequisites and influencers . The four prerequisites must be satisfied for sales to occur. The five influencers can sway customers' purchasing decisions and the goals they seek to achieve.

  • The filters are as follows :

    • Goal motivation (I)

    • Current situation (I)

    • Plans (I)

    • Alternatives (I)

    • Decision makers (P)

    • Complete, start, budget, and decision dates (P)

    • Funding (P)

    • Past keys (I)

    • Attainment measurement (P)

  • A customer's positive, neutral, or negative status determines its willingness to share information about filters—unless you make goals measurable.

  • Use the create-and-wait strategy to win over satisfied negative customers.

  • Locate the FDM by looking at the contact positions in similar- size organizations and market segments in which you have successes and failures. Adjust your contact level according to whether they are positive, neutral, or negative customers.

  • Moving funding from a capital investment to an operating budget expense lowers the decision-making level and shortens the sales cycle.

  • Attainment measurement is the most-important filter for both customers and you because it determines whether they can achieve goals via your products.

  • A person qualifies as the FDM if he or she determines the specifics of the four prerequisites and releases or allocates funds.

  • Make sure you focus on the goals customers want to achieve, not on how they are using features of competitors ' products.



Notes

1. Martin G. Groder, Business Games: How to Recognize the Players and Deal with Them (New York: Boardroom Classics, 1980).



Chapter 5: Every Question Counts

Overview

The devil is in the details. You and customers both need to know the specifics of their G oals, F ilters, M easurable benefits, and S ystems of evaluations (SOEs). The mnemonics (memory aids used to help you remember these four items) for them: G o F or M easurable S pecifics (GFMS). When you quantify their details, you know exactly what customers are trying to achieve. You also know whether your products achieve those goals.

You use your listening and questioning skills to accomplish this task. Your mastery of these skills is vital because the difference between a successful and a wasted sales call is extremely subtle. Forgetting to ask only one or two questions to quantify a customer's comments can make a large difference. You know you missed a question when you say, "If I had known that, I would have ... (fill in your own blank)" after you lost the sale or disappointed a customer.

Yet, questions are like limited natural resources. You can only ask so many questions before you exceed a customer's grilling threshold. Grilled customers fight back with curt answers such as "Yeah," "Nope," and "Okay." Therefore, make every question count. This chapter shows how to make every one count by explaining:

  • How to get customers to consider you an expert because of the questions you ask

  • How your active listening and active questioning skills motivate customers to provide measurable answers

  • How your customers use three types of answers to share information—and how only one of them counts

  • How the four key questioning techniques work to transform vague responses into crystal-clear statements


The Science of Sales Success(c) A Proven System for High Profit, Repeatable Results
Authors: Costell J.
 Published year: 2006
 Pages: 71-74/170
Buy this book on amazon.com >>

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