“A Prospect Who is Listening, is No Prospect At All”

In Sandler’s book we focused on his rule, “A prospect who is listening, is no prospect at all.” First, let’s define prospect, in the case of sales a prospect is someone with whom you engage for the purpose of closing a sale. So to dissect the rule, if in a meeting, where you, the seller, are supposed to SELL, and you find the prospect is only listening to you, SHUT UP and start asking questions. We are sellers need the prospect to be the ones talking. Focus on gearing your questions to find the pain or potential problem, find your focus via the pain funnel we have learned. As Sweet reminded us, “Selling ain’t telling, asking is.” Start with something as simple as encouraging the pain “So tell me more about that…” You want your dialogue with the prospect to flow like a real conversation, but don’t forget to answer questions with more questions. Don’t ever interrupt, and don’t focus on preparing your next question before they have finished speaking. You want to be able to show the prospect that you care and want to understand at a multitude of levels. Another helpful tip is that of the 70/30 rule. “The 70/30 rule relates to the ratio of statements to questions used by the salesperson” that would be referring to YOU. You run the risk of losing a sale by talking too much. The whole point of this Sandler rule is this, if they are listening that means they are not talking, and we as salespersons, need them to be talking.