In class, today, we had a sales conversation with Professor Sweet about points back on the test. The conversation centered around pain felt by students, and not necessarily pain felt by Professor Sweet. In the conversation, I attempted to focus on asking him questions to try to determine pain. However, I feel I did not dig deep enough. The pain found was only surface level, and needed to be further explored. Through further exploring the pain, the seller can gain a better understanding of the customer and his wants and needs. Through understanding, the best fit can be determined and discover further how the product/service can be helpful (or not) to the buyer. Furthermore, fit was not necessarily explored in the conversation today. This was because we wanted there to be only one outcome, and in turn were closed off.
Additionally, in this conversation, Professor Sweet would ask questions back to the seller. I felt I would just answer the question and then try to throw another question back. However, I needed to keep my response short and ask more questions for a deeper understanding. This would follow the 70/30 rule. The 70/30 rule encourages the seller to ask questions 30 percent of the time and listen 70 percent. When the seller just answers questions from the buyer straight up, the seller may give an answer that is irrelevant to the buyer, works against the seller, and/or causes the seller to become trapped in the box. When this happens, the seller loses control of the sale. Much like today, Professor Sweet ended up controlling too much of the sale.
Overall, the sales conversation went fine. We, the sellers, received a curve that felt adequate to us and Professor Sweet felt that he provided one that was reasonable; both parties walked away with a win-win situation.
schlemeierej23
I like how you identified that Prof. Sweet controlled many of the conversations. He is truly a skilled salesman but he also doesn’t make it easy on the salesman when in the other seat. It is good practice to try to sell to a person who understands what you are doing and can test you better. Today was a fun hands on test of our knowledge.
It was certainly an interesting buyer/seller conversation that we had in class! (Maybe there was no pain for Professor Sweet??) I have been thinking how I want to spend more time asking questions of my family and to have good conversations. There is so much to be gained on really trying to ask questions and sincerely strive to know people better and understand their pain. This will help us in so many aspects of life AND sales:-)