Are You Having The Wrong Conversation?

When meeting with prospects or high level decision makers, many salespeople focus on the wrong type of conversation.

Your average salesperson will spend hours preparing sheets that outline their product’s features, benefits, pricing and other details. They practice their pitch, and at times have a lengthy speech rehearsed. While preparation is never a bad thing, the successful salesperson understands the value of focusing on the correct aspect of the presentation.

Focus on your client.

Your client’s needs, issues and problems should be the main focus of your presentation. While your product may have dozens of practical uses, if the client is only interested in one or two of those uses, you’re wasting their time and boring them by outlining features he or she doesn’t need.

However, if you spend the bulk of your time listening to what your buyer needs and desires, you can fine tune your approach and make your sales pitch more efficient and relevant to your client. Doing so maximizes your chances for success.

Truly exceptional salespeople know that their job is not just selling products and services. Rather, it is about improving the condition of their clients. ← Click To Tweet

Learn to get inside your client’s mind by asking open-ended questions. The next step is to diagnose and explore their challenges so that you can get a clear understanding on how those challenges affect their business. Once you have understood their issues on a deeper level, you can work with them to create a solution to their problems.

If you’re spending the majority of the time focusing on your sales pitch and you neglect to ask meaningful questions to your prospect, you are setting yourself up for failure.

So, instead of creating elevator pitches, benefit statements and feature sheets, create a list of engaging questions you can ask your prospects at every sales meeting.

As a general rule of thumb, you should spend only 30% of the time talking to prospects during presentations and 70% of the time listening! By doing so, you’re maximizing your chances for success not only with closing sales, but also with converting prospects to long term business relationships as well.

For more methods and ideas for creating long term success with prospects, check out Nonstop Sales Boom!

How much time do you spend listening compared to talking during presentations?

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