Listening First Sales

When you are selling a great product whose value you truly believe in, it is definitely tempting to gush to prospects about everything that makes your product excellent. Sometimes, you know your product is the best on the market and could benefit potential customers in many ways. But Sandler Rule number five reminds us that not every prospect is a potential customer; prospects have unique expectations and goals and are concerned with different ambiguities associated with your product.

During my sales and marketing internship, I had the opportunity to see Sandler Rule number five in practice. The rule states that a salesman should not simply hear what he wants to hear from the customer and proceed to overwhelm him or her with information. I travelled with the company’s best sales rep and watched him listen to customers to discover their needs and pain points.

The sales rep I shadowed exemplified the usefulness of this rule by first asking prospects which product they currently used. “Great,” he said, “and how well has it worked for you?” More often than not, prospects expressed one or more dissatisfactions with their current products. The sales rep capitalized on these opportunities by gently suggesting how our product might help these prospects resolve their specific, unmet needs. He never gave in to the temptation to inundate prospects with information about our products. He knew that every customer has unique concerns. The rep told me that, because our customers were older automotive and diesel mechanics who liked to get their hands dirty, they frankly did not care one bit about the technical aspects of our products – they simply wanted to learn how the products could make their lives easier. Because he listened before speaking, it is not a surprise that his territory had the best sales numbers in America.