Most people, when they think of a sales conversation having one-sided power, assume that the salesman is the one in control. However, more times than not a prospect can grab hold of power of the sale before the salesman even saw it coming. A prospect can ask the right questions to stump the salesman or get information the salesman didn’t want to give away.
We see this when a prospect asks about price too soon or asks how the salesman’s company is different from the rest. If a salesman answers these questions directly, then most likely the salesman put him or herself into a bad position aka stuck. How does a salesman avoid getting stuck? Don’t answer the question until you are ready to. If a prospect asks about price, a salesperson could say “can I get back to you on that” or “can I ask you a couple more questions before we get into that?” Those are good ways to delay the price conversation until the salesperson feels ready to answer. The salesman could also say “tell me about your budget a little” or bracketing. Bracketing tells a customer the price, but gives the prospect multiple options. After giving 3 or 4 price ranges, ask the prospect if they fit into any of those ranges. The prospect will be less likely to lie about their budget if they have a wide range to put themselves into.
A prospect might also stump a salesperson by asking how the salesman’s company is better or different from competitors. Salespeople make the mistake of listing off benefits which can either give away too much information or can allow the customer to say “well this other company does that and all of this stuff as well.” After saying that, where do you go from there? So to avoid getting stuck in that situation, use that question to try to find the pain points of the customer or what the customer values. You could find this by asking “well what are you looking for in x service or product.”
Keep asking questions and letting the prospect speak more than you. If you are not ready to answer a question yet, then find ways to avoid the question for the time being and then come back to it.
BoweryJE22
Great post! It is so true how much power the prospect has, ecpecially one with any experience selling or being sold to. We saw endess examples of this during our sales conversations in class.
This post resonates with me so much when it came to what I have learned after taking sales in the startup. Never get stuck by never having to directly answer a prospects questions is a perfect strategy to always shape the conversation in your favor.