In many iconic sales scenarios, the salesman does the majority of the talking and the prospective customer spends a lot of time listening. In many cases, the salesman rattles off a list of benefits and features that their product or service provide and the customer is expected to buy based purely off of the salesperson’s ability to list fact. In other instances, the salesperson listens to the customer for a while but does not get to the root problem, like this iconic scene from Tommy Boy. In this scene, the salesmen think they know the best way to sell but they are horribly mistaken, resulting in a tragic turn of events. The ideal selling experience revolves around the salesman shutting up and listening. The majority of what the salesman says should be questions. Plain and simple.
The questions that we ask should be quality and open ended, at first. These types of questions allow the needs of the customer to become obvious to the salesman or at least allows the salesman to figure out the general needs of the customer. The next type of questions that should be asked are open ended probing questions. These types of questions allow for the salesman to have a light bulb moment, so they can move onto a solution to the need that has been discovered. The probing questions push the customer towards revealing the deepest need they need solved. The majority of the sales process revolves around asking the best questions at the right time and not saying much at all.
BoweryJE22
A lot of salespeople are either great listeners or great talkers. It is hard to have that balanced and often times hard to realize if one is being more than the other. More salespeople need to be more conscious of what type of questions they are asking and focus on the goal of finding the problem. More salespeople need to put themselves in the shoes of the buyer. I enjoyed how you tied a sales lesson to a movie scene.
Its easy to go right into sales mode and start selling something to your prospective customer. But it definitely takes skill and practice to just listen first and learn something from it and learn about them as well. It also benefits what you need to hit on and how it affects your selling point, listening to them in the beginning is key on what to change about your pitch
Listening is definitely an essential part of selling that often goes overlooked. How can you know what your customer wants if you don’t listen to them? However there is also a balance to maintain between listening and sharing relevant information at the right time. This balance shows both genuine interest in solving a problem as well as giving a possible solution.
Came for the title, stayed for the Tommy Boy video. But really, this is a huge part of sales and is so important to remember. And this goes for any relationship in life, really. If we’re going to offer any help or service to anyone, we have to listen first to truly understand their needs.