Sales Prospecting Techniques: Learning about your Customer’s Problems

Have you ever called on a potential sales prospect who is complacent about his business problems?… Is your customer in survival mode?… Is your sales prospect hoping the problems will straighten themselves out on their own? Perhaps your prospect is just plain clueless about the problems he is facing?

Your customer wants to fix his problems, but because he can get caught up in his day-to-day struggles, it is hard to step back and assess the situation. That’s where you step in. It’s time to do some tweaking to your sales prospecting techniques — helping your customer organize his thoughts, assess the situation, and start addressing his business problems — by asking the following two questions:

  1. What is this problem costing you in terms of (resources, money, profits, overhead, productivity, output, labor, time, customers, market share, etc.)?
  2. What’s the implication on you and your organization should this problem continue?

Improving your sales prospecting techniques by asking these two questions will help you evaluate their current situation, quantify their problem and determine their commitment level to take action!

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Paul Cherry

For over two decades, sales expert and author PAUL CHERRY has helped B2B sales professionals close more deals in all major industries. As a recognized thought leader in customer engagement strategies, Paul Cherry has been featured in more than 250 publications, including Investor’s Business Daily, Selling Power, Inc., Sales & Marketing Management, The Kiplinger Letter, and Salesforce.

Performance Based Results

Paul Cherry is the president of Performance Based Results. PBR delivers intense, customized sales team training programs and sales management coaching to companies throughout North America. Paul has worked with more than 1,200 organizations, including 175 of the Fortune 500, plus more than a thousand entrepreneurial, small to mid-sized, cutting-edge businesses looking to dominate their niche markets. Clients typically get 7 times their return-on-investment (ROI) or better.

Questions That Sell

Paul Cherry’s top-rated bestseller, Questions That Sell: The Powerful Process for Discovering What Your Customer Really Wants (AMACOM) has been listed on BookAuthority’s “100 Best Sales Books of All Time” and has been published in four languages. He is also the author of Questions That Get Results (Wiley) and The Ultimate Sales Pro (HarperCollins Leadership).

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