You wanna get better at selling? You wanna get better at demand creation rather than demand reaction?
Then learn how to uncover your prospects “how.”
How does your prospect do what they do?
Here’s how it works.
Start with what your product or service does. What value does it bring?
Then start asking your prospect how they do what your product or service does now.
Ex: You sell hauling equipment.
“How” questions:
- How do you haul today?
- How long does it take?
- How many people are involved?
- How many trips does it take to haul?
- How expensive are your fuel costs?
- How frequently to you have to fuel?
- How much waste do you experience?
- How much manual loading is required?
- How far can you go without refueling?
- How much can you load in a single trip?
- How quickly can you unload?
- How fuel efficient is your hauling?
- etc.
I don’t run a hauling equipment company, but if I knew the answers to these questions, I’m pretty sure I could sell a lot of hauling equipment.
Why?
If you’re selling anything that is valuable, what your selling should be an improvement over what they are doing. If you don’t know what they are doing, you can selling an improvement.
Learn your prospects “how.”
Great post and video Jim, many thanks as usual for the great work. – Barry.
Asking the prospect questions that begin with, “How?” could help you uncover the problems they have that need solutions. From there, you can work with them to determine which of your products or services will solve these problems.
Exactly Caroline! You nailed it.
Much similar to my colleague’s article here, https://www.tenfold.com/sales-performance/benefits-versus-features-b2b-selling-age-informed-customer, it’s like selling the benefits rather than focusing on the features. Customers don’t want to hear what products are all about, but they are interested in “how” — yes, there’s the how — the products will address their concerns or make their companies a lot better. Great work, Keenan!