Gaining the competitive edge: don’t assume you know what your prospect wants
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Jun 22, 2009 @ 01:49 AM
I was coaching a rep during a telesales call last month, when she said to her prospect "So, I assume that you'll need the development process to run more efficiently" (she sold application development solutions that streamlined the development process). The prospect at that point became annoyed, and testily responded with "actually, we're pretty efficient as it is now, what have I said that indicated it wasn't?" (he was a Director of Software Development). While the prospect had other reasons for looking at the rep's solution, efficiency wasn't one of them, so by "assuming," she hurt the rapport she'd spent all call building up, and had to back up a notch and say she was mistaken for putting words in his mouth.
Fact is, we never know exactly what our prospect wants, or thinks, unless we ask through an "open" question, or the prospect volunteers the information first. We're never as smart as the prospect, as much as we try to be. In my telesales training courses, I discuss the concept of being "intelligently ignorant", which means that you want to ask a lot of questions, even if you think you know all the answers. In the United States today, there's lots of "assuming" on the part of companies looking for ways to attract customers, and all it does is result in products and services that reflect the least common denominator. Many Thai restaurants, for example, are making their tam yum goong (spicy prawn soup) with hardly any spices because "Western people don't like spices." As a result, the soup is nothing like you'd find in Thailand, and in many cases virtually inedible, but the Thais think they're doing the Yanks a big favor by lowering the quality of their product. For years, Ford has been marketing the cute, sexy, high mileage "Ka" car in Europe, but doesn't do it in the U.S. Did they ever ask the U.S. consumer if he or she wanted a car like that? Probably not, because Japanese automakers seem to be selling all the sexy small cars in the U.S. right now. And how's the U.S. auto industry doing these days, by the way? I could give you many other examples, but I think you know what I'm saying. By failing to ask the prospect what he or she wants or thinks, we're losing information that is essential to getting more customers and making the sale. In each case above, the "manufacturers" force-fed product to the customer, and in doing so failed to provide leadership or attempt to educate the prospect. And they're losing business because they assume the customer isn't bright enough to make an informed decision. Regardless of what you're selling, I hope you'll understand the metaphor.
Getting back to telesales, now, why not consider dropping the "assumptive" habit yourself? Instead, change the way you ask questions. Try to avoid asking questions that begin with the words "Is... ?" or "Are...?" , which most often lead to assumptions. Instead (and here I'll use applications development examples, for continuity's sake), try the following ways of asking a question:
"Describe", "Would you explain", "Would you elaborate on" and "Tell me about" are great words and phrases that you can use to start learning more by having the prospect tell you in his or her words where the problem areas are.
As much as some people seem to be telling us, there aren't all that many "one size fits all" sales situations, whether it's soup, cars, or development tools. You owe your prospect your best quality solution, and the way you diagnose it is by asking good open questions prior to making recommendations. Focusing on asking your prospect about his or her priorities should be your priority. So be "intelligently ignorant", assume nothing, and add open questions to your Best Practices playbook.