Sales is a voyage of discovery. True sales professionals understand that the idea that we “convince”anyone to buy anything is false at it’s very core. While some weak minded people may occasionally buy something because they were pressured to, these are the exceptions to the rule.
Like any recovered addict will tell you, their recovery started when they discovered they wanted to get better, not when someone else convinced them to. The purchasing decision empowers people, while being sold makes people feel used, manipulated, and taken advantage of. That baseline belief is at the center of every sales professional’s knowledge.
So what does that mean to you every day, from a practical perspective? What can you DO based on believing that discovery makes a buyer, not persuasion.
The answer lies in what human behavioral science tells us about how people assimilate new information. Ultimately that is all you are trying to do, get your prospect to consider and accept new information that will cause them to WANT to change their mind. That is done by asking them questions, specifically questions that they cannot answer using their current knowledge, which causes them to ask themselves new questions, and hence discover new needs and new pains. When they discover those, they’ve found what will make them want to buy.
Your success hinges on identifying the questions that get your prospects to ask themselves the right questions. You’re not seeking answers from them, as much as you’re seeking the inability to answer those questions. They must question what they know to figure out what they don’t know.
So, got questions? Specifically, have you identified the questions that leave cannon ball sized holes in your prospect’s thinking? Those are the tools you need. Those are the questions that lead to a discovery path for your prospects.