March 2004

How to Get Prospects to Talk to You
By Cymber Quinn, President, Ink Technology Communications, Corp.

What's one of the toughest problems facing sales reps? Connecting with customers and getting them to talk. We've all heard stories of prospects who can't seem to find time in their calendar to meet or who promise to return phone calls, read literature, and get back with us. And once you're in the office or on the phone, it's often difficult to pin down the customer, to get them to commit to a sale.

What if you had one tool that would ensure a quality conversation in nearly every sales call? And what if that tool could help you determine quickly — even before the proposal stage — whether the prospective customer is willing to buy or just giving you the brush off? As it happens, everyone has this tool and almost nobody uses it. It's called active listening.

Are You Really Listening?
You may think that you listen all the time, but the reality is that most of us are only half listening to what others are saying. Usually, we spend a good portion of the time when others are talking formulating answers to their half-heard comments. Instead of really understanding what someone is saying, we latch onto key phrases or comments and begin creating replies before the other person is finished speaking.

In a sales situation, it's even worse. Before customers can get a word in edgewise, sales reps typically tell them everything about the product or service without asking — even once — whether the prospects need the product or not. The reps are acting on enormous leaps of judgment about the company, what it does, its problems, and the type of help needed. And even if the customers are able to discuss their problems, the reps often aren't listening; instead, they're getting ready to describe all the speeds and feeds, features, and cool stuff.

Make a “Sales Listen”
Now, think about how this makes the client feel. Yep, we've all been there — annoyed, threatened, wondering when the call will end, and if the rep will stop talking. If you're in sales or leading a sales group, you can bet that your customers probably feel the same way about your organization, if your company approaches sales calls this way.

This method used to work in the 1950s, but now both reps and prospects want another way to interact. But how? Active listening completely changes the dynamics of the sales call. In fact, we might label it a “sales listen.” During this “sales listen,” reps take the time to understand prospects' problems thoroughly — how they've tried to solve them, why they need help, and most importantly, whether their product or service is a good fit to solve the problem.

Keep Quiet
What is active listening? For starters, it means that during a sales call, reps should be listening about 70 percent of the time and talking only 30 percent. They should ask questions that help define the problem, such as:

• What are your most pressing concerns?
• How long have you been dealing with them?
• What have you done to try to resolve the issues?
• How are they affecting your company?
• What other options are you considering?
• Do you have a budget that you're working with?

Is the Prospect a Good Fit?
At this point in the “sales listen,” reps will have a good understanding of their prospects' needs and should now take the time to evaluate the situation and ask themselves the following questions:

• Is the problem one that I can solve?
• Can our product solve the issue out of the box, or is customization necessary?
• What components would the client be most interested in based on the problem at hand?
• Can we put together a solution that fits within the available budget?
• Is the prospect committed to fixing the problem, or has it been going on so long that they'll drag their feet the entire way?

Once the reps have gathered all the information they can through active listening, then they can tailor their presentations to address their customers' pain points. Not only will their proposals better match their prospects' needs, but the prospects will be a lot more receptive to the conversation because they're active participants.

Cymber Quinn has been writing professionally for 22 years and owns Ink Technology Communications. Ink specializes in premier writing services for enterprise IT software and hardware companies.