Last Wednesday we had Coach DiDonato, the head football coach, make a guest appearance in the classroom to give a talk on sales. As well as being an extremely entertaining person to listen to, Coach DiDonato was very skilled at getting his lesson across to us in an interesting way. He gave the demonstration of students trying to sell him a pen to illustrate the point that sales conversations have three parties: the seller, the buyer, and the item. Most sellers focus on the wrong thing- the item. This approach tends to quickly lose the interest of the buyer. Therefore, a seller must focus not on the item but on the buyer himself. Ways to do this include asking open ended questions, not allowing yes or no answers, and focusing on the benefits of the product for the buyer. In other words, features tell, benefits sell. Coach DiDonato used a sales funnel to help illustrate these ideas. The sales funnel consists of five layers representing the different stages of trying to make a sale. The top layer is called the pre-call analysis. During this stage you are to learn as much about your client as you can before you meet them. In the next stage, need-analysis, you ask the client general, open-ended questions allowing them to take different paths in their answers. Next is the stage need awareness, in which your questions should transition to more specific and probing ones, trying to land on a more specific topic of their main interest. After this you move into the need solution stage in which you tell them about the features of your product and also focus on the benefits of it. Finally, is the need satisfaction section in which you have earned the right to flat out ask the client for the sale. I really enjoyed Coach DiDonato’s talk because it felt applicable to me in ways other than just selling. I think there were a lot of things that I could take out of it and apply to my everyday conversations with people. He also pointed out that Jesus talked to and asked questions of people all the time and that we should follow His example. Putting time and effort into relationships and conversations is a great thing to do, both in and outside of a sales standpoint.
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wheelerne24 One thought on “Talk by Coach DiDonato”
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This is my second post about hearing Coach’s talk, it was so helpful and just an amazing talk. Coach D does a great job teaching and keeping engaged. His talk was really good last week and helped me learn so much about the Sales Funnel. The open-ended questions are so incredibly important, and most salespeople don’t understand that, but he does. The Need Analysis is so important, and it helped me gain more knowledge in how to engage in a better relationship with a buyer. Overall, the Sales Funnel will now be stuck in my head, and I will follow it through all my sales conversations. Nice job on this post.