One of the biggest obstacles to uncovering the prospect’s compelling reason to buy is that the salesperson does not ask enough follow-up questions. They hear the prospect explain the problem in summary form, then quickly move to solving it or expounding on their capabilities to solve it based on their own vast experience with similar problems. The problem is that when you do that, you are implicitly assuming that you know what is behind the problem, what caused it, the downstream effects of the problem, the consequences of the problem to the prospect and other stake holders, the context the problem exists within which may affect the solution to the problem or at least how the prospect feels about the situation he or she is operating within. I could go on but you get the point. the interesting thing is that a rookie is less likely to make that mistake because he does not have the experience to “know” the situation. He hasn’t seen it 25 times in the past so he has to ask the questions. So today’s tip is don’t assume … ask … you may be surprised at the answer.
