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In previous editions of SALES SOLUTIONS we have looked at the importance of asking open questions. These are questions normally beginning with the words who, what, when, why, where or how and are generally used in order to understand more about the customer's situation.

However without a clear end goal in mind these questions can easily become vague and unstructured. We need to help the customer understand the pain or inconvenience they will suffer if they don’t buy (or put off buying) our proposed solution. If we can agitate the issue sufficiently they are more likely to buy our proposed solution in order to avoid future pain. We can do this by using a funnelling approach in our questions.

A funnelling approach has five elements:

• A background question to understand more about the customer’s specific situation. • A problem question to understand what issues are caused by the current situation. • An implication question to understand the impact of the issues. • An agitation question to help the customer understand what could happen should the situation continue. (This is the crucial one..the customer needs to feel the ‘pain’ of not doing something) • A need question to help the customer understand how you could help them resolve the issue and take away the ‘pain’.

Funnelling your questions to agitate the need

The best way to illustrate this is by sharing an example with you:

If we imagine we are the supplier to a printing company a typical sales conversation might be as follows:

Seller: “How many corporate brochures do you print each year?” (background question)
Customer: “At least a dozen or so main ones I guess”

Seller: “Does the volume of corporate brochure work cause you any problems?” (problem question)
Customer: “Well it can get pretty hectic at the peak times”

Seller: “How does that affect quality?” (implication question)
Customer: “It sometimes means that some brochures have to be more basic to leave us free to concentrate on the design of the more complicated ones”

Seller: “What might happen if this were to continue?” (agitation question)
Customer: “Well I guess we might start losing customers who are not happy at receiving just a basic brochure”

Seller: “If we could find a way of working with you to reduce the workload yet still make sure all the brochures are of a good standard, would that help”? (need question)
Customer: “Well anything that helped us manage the problem would be welcome”

We are then into our presentation emphasising the benefits of our products to the customer. By agitating the problem they are more likely to buy the solution.

Are you funnelling your questions? Are you agitating the problem- making the customer appreciate the pain – if they don’t take action?

Why not try this approach on your next sales visit and let me know how it goes?

Gary Recommends

For the last four months I have been enjoying being part of the largest joined up breakfast networking group in the UK- 4NETWORKING.

Having been launched just over three years ago by Brad Burton 4NETWORKING’s growth has been staggering..and I can see why.

Having been to other networking groups I have found them to be either too business focused with an overbearing emphasis on referrals or too social with no real tangible business benefits. 4NETWORKING has taken the best of both approaches and come up with a unique blend of 50% social and 50% business.

All meetings take place in a friendly relaxed atmosphere with a Group Leader bringing an informal structure to the session. People genuinely go to 4NETWORKING meetings because they want to be there not because they have to.

The really great thing about 4NETWORKING is that you get three one-to-one business appointments in the room then and there. With no gatekeepers to get past you have a genuine opportunity to establish rapport and common ground with a business owner.

There are 4NETWORKING groups springing up all over the UK-and they’re even going to Australia soon- so there is bound to be a group near you. To check out your nearest group I recommend you go to www.4Networking.biz/welcome and book yourself in ..it’s only £10 to go as a visitor and you’ll be able to network with some really friendly, dynamic people.

Why not come and say hello in person at the following 4NETWORKING meetings where I am guest speaker:

• Stamford June 26th 2009 • Corby July 2nd 2009 • Burton on Trent July 15th 2009 • Chesterfield September 3rd 2009 • Grantham September 16th 2009

Preparing to speak about Twitter at a recent 4NETWORKING meeting in Kidderminster

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Gary Gorman helps businesses to attract more customers and grow sales by up to 40%.
For a FREE special report please visit howtosellalmostanythingtoalmostanybody.com

Thanks for reading and see you next time.

Gary Gorman

paradigmtraining.co.uk | howtosellalmostanythingtoalmostanybody.com