In a touch economic environment, sales are becoming more difficult to achieve, but question based selling offers a fresh perspective on the age old art of selling a prospect.

Question based selling is the new approach to selling, and as the name implies you use questions to guide the prospect to the point in which they realize their problem and how you are offering the solution they need. This method is also known as spin selling and consultative selling, but whatever you want to call it, the method is customer-focused and effective at driving home the sale.

Typical sales methods involve what is known as AIDI—an acronym for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Close. This process requires you to make contact with the prospect, set up an appointment with the prospect, make your presentation or sales pitch, and then close, close, close, and close!

Top salespeople are finding that this is no longer as effective as it may have once been. In an every changing economic and sales climate, if you want to sell a prospect you have to earn their trust. The age old adage ABC, or Always Be Closing, still applies, you just have to go about it in a different manner, and that is where question based selling comes into play.

Let’s face it, today prospects are busier than ever and are bombarded by sales calls, e-mails, letters and advertisements dozens of times a day. Thanks to the Internet, prospects’ knowledge of what you sell is probably greater than you think, and many of the decision makers suffer from information overload. This is due to countless salespeople coming their way, cramming information down their throats with the objective of trying to score a sale. What today’s prospect needs is a solution to their problem. They do not want to know about how great you are and how awesome your product is. Rather, they simply want to know what you can do for them, and how you are going to make their lives easier, more productive, or more lucrative.

How to Utilize Question Based Selling

When you begin a sales call with a prospect, resist the urge to deliver your pitch immediately. Instead, ask questions that are on a broader level. Get to know the client, what they do and how they do it, as well as the types of challenges they face. Avoid making your pitch right away, and instead lead the prospect gently down the path that will have them asking you for your help to solve a problem. Asking broader questions first allows you to gain an understanding of what makes them tick and what keeps them up at night.

If you can control the conversation, you can begin to narrow your questions as you lead the prospect to the problem they have—the one you can solve for them. Once the opportunity presents itself in the series of questions, you are then in the right position to deliver your pitch. If timed properly, your pitch will come off as the solution to the problem and not a sales pitch at all.

If you don’t find an opportunity to deliver your pitch in the first meeting then don’t try. It’s important that you don’t force the issue and come across as a typical pushy salesperson just trying to make buck. Focus on earning trust and respect and you are much more likely to eventually earn another sales call at a later date.

When you come back to the prospect for another sales call have a new batch of questions to ask  that will lead the prospect in the direction you want them to go. If you truly can’t offer the prospect a solution then pull out and walk away. Most prospects will respect the fact that you are honest enough not to pitch them something they don’t need. The reward: a high possibility of referrals as they tell people they know about you. While you may have missed an opportunity with one prospect, you may inadvertently gain other opportunities as a result, especially if you have taken the time to offer value to the customer and have proven yourself to be a true consultant.

Question based selling is the new and innovative way to conduct sales one-on-one just as Internet marketing is the new way to use your sales skills to tap into an ever-growing market. Many salespeople who have the foresight to see how question based selling can help their careers may also begin to realize that there is so much more they could do with their business to keep up with the changing markets. Mastering new sales and marketing skills, especially quested based selling, are great first steps toward building a business of your own.

To learn more about question based selling and how your innovative thinking can be put to work for your own benefit, visit http://www.localbusinessmoneymachine.com.

Filed under: Sales Tips

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