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• Commonly Asked Questions
  • What interests you in this position
  • What motivates you
  • Have you consistently met your sales goals
  • Sell me this pen
• SPIN Selling (4 Questions)
  • Situation Questions
    • Facts, Information, Background)
  • Problem Questions
    • Uncover any issues the client might have
  • Implication Questions
    • Probe to see how the problems can grow under conditions and what effect those might have.
  • Needs-Payoff Questions
    • These define the value or usefulness of solving a Problem and focus the attention on the Solution.
• Solutions Selling
• Challenger Sales (TBD)
• Consultive Selling (TBD)
• Unique Selling Points (TBD)

Commonly Ask Questions

What interests you most about this position

1. Experience with the target audience or product and have expertise
2. Emotional satisfaction and feeling of achievement when closing a deal

What motivates you

1. How you deal with rejection
   • While I do find rejects disappointing, I do believe in learning from them.
   • This motivates me to correct any errors I made and perfect new techniques
2. How you are as a person that motivates yourself and/or others

Have you consistently met your sales goals?

1. Is there consistency in your achievements and work ethic?
2. Are you able to meet your goals regularly or irregularly?
   1. If possible, provide times you’ve met your goals with verifiable facts. (Do not lie!)

Sell me this pen.

• Gather information
  • Get to know who you’re selling the pen to
    • When was the last time you used a pen?
      • This morning
      • You have identified the user as a potential client
    • Do you remember what kind of pen it was?
      • No.
      • Now there is a hole that you can fill with your pen.
    • Do you remember why you were using it?
      • Yes, signing a few contracts
        • Emphasize the importance of that event
        • This builds emotions
    • Wouldn’t you say signing those new customer contracts was an important event for the business?
      • Yes
    • Then shouldn’t it be treated like one?
    • This is a tool you’ll use to get business done.
• How well you respond to the information
• How well you deliver the information
• How you ask for something. (Go for the close.)

Example

• When was the last time you used a pen?
  • This morning
    • You have identified the user as a potential client
• Do you remember what kind of pen it was?
  • No.
    • Now there is a hole that you can fill with your pen.
• Do you remember why you were using it?
  • Yes, signing a few contracts
    • Use this answer to build emotions with your follow up question
• Wouldn’t you say signing those new customer contracts was an important event for the business?
  • Yes
    • To build emotions, sell the event as bigger than it actually was
• Then shouldn’t it be treated like one? This is the tool you’ll use to get business done.  Using this pen will help you in closing more deals and build your business.
• Go for the close
  • Limited Time:
    • Unfortunately we shipped our last case this morning and we’re not expecting the reorder to be completed until next week.
    • Luckily, I have this one pen left.  Why don’t you take this one?
      • Hand the pen back.  Make it theirs!
    • I’ll tell you what, if you don’t like it, I’ll personally come back next week to pick it up, and it won’t cost you a dime.

SPIN Selling

S Situation Questions

Each collects facts, information and background data

• Don’t ask too many of these or it will get boring!
• Most of these can be answered prior to the call by doing research on the client.

1. What sort of business do you run?
2. How many people do you Employ?
3. What kind of equipment are you using?

P Problem Questions

These questions probe for problems, difficulties or dissatisfaction.

1. Are you satisfied with your current equipment?
2. Is it difficult to process peak loads?
3. Are you experiencing reliability problems?

I Implication Questions

These uncover Effects and Consequences of the customer’s problem.

• Take a problem that perceives to be small and build it up into something large enough to justify action.
  • Is the problem big enough to justify the expense?
• These questions build the perception of value.
  • This helps tip the scales in your favor

1. What effect does this have on your output?
2. Could this lead to increased costs?

Now increase the implications

N Needs-Payoff Questions

These define the value or usefulness of solving a Problem and focus the attention on the Solution.

• These may also have the customer telling you the benefits of your own solution!

1. Is it important to you to sell this problem?
2. Why would you find this solution so useful?
3. How do you think a faster machine would help you?
   • “It would take away the production bottleneck and make better use of a skilled operator.”

Solutions Selling

15 quick solutions selling tips

Walk clients through a process that helps them identify the solution to their own problem

1. Stop pitching upfront.
   1. Do not start by talking about the features and benefits of your product/services
   2. Clients want you to understand what they are going through
2. Drop the excitement.
   1. Even if you are honestly excited about the product you provide, do not let the prospect see this upfront.
      1. This signals you are a sales person with a mission to sell.
      2. This also drops your value to the prospect
   2. Be genuine and real.
3. Make the meeting about them.
   1. In Solutions selling, it is about understanding what is going on in their world.
   2. Focus on their challenges
   3. You may wish to open with some slightly leading questions
      1. “We’ve recently been noticing in the marketplace, that businesses very similar to yours, are experiencing issues with X, Y and Z.  Do any of these ring true to you and if so, tell me about it.”
4. Understand their challenges.
   1. “If you could be doing one thing better when it comes to X, what would that be?”
   2. Get them to paint you a picture of what is actually going on.
      1. Follow up with deeper probing questions: “Tell me more about that.”
5. Know their objectives.
   1. This is the opposite of knowing their challenges
      1. What are they looking to accomplish
      2. What is important to them.
6. Get clear on what accomplishing their goals will actually mean.
   1. Quantitative – What does this mean in terms of $$
      1. Additional Revenue?
      2. Additional Profitability?
      3. These create VALUE for your product!
7. Get their personal motivation.
   1. Every business objective has a personal objective.
      1. Additional bonus or compensation?
      2. Prevent job loss?
   2. Buyers make decisions based on personal motivation and emotions.
      1. Not just logical Yes or No types of questions.
8. Present only what matters to them.
   1. Now that you know the challenges, present only what they’ve already told you matters most.
      1. Do not tell them everything your product can do
   2. “I’ve listened to you and now I’m going to provide you with the solutions to these challenges.”
9. Use case studies.
   1. “You told me you’re having issues with X, Y and Z.  Let me tell you about another client of our who was struggling with these same challenges.  Let me share what these challenges looked like to them and what we did to solve them.”
      1. This puts the solution into the form of a story and engages the prospect.
      2. Everyone loves storytime!
10. Stop overcoming objections.
    1. Are the objections the problem, or is the process that brings the sales person to the objections the problem.
    2. A great sales person is going to make sure they understand exactly what is going on in the life of their prospect and what they care about.
       1. If so, then objections should not even come up.
    3. Objections are often just questions.
    4. If they are saying “You told me about A,B and C, but what I really need is X, Y and Z…”
       1. You missed this during the discovery part of the conversation.
       2. Address the concerns at the start of the conversation so they do not come up.
11. Never go past 60 seconds.
    1. Never get into a monologue where you’re going on and on and on and on and…
    2. Conversations need to be just that, conversations.
       1. “Are we still on the same page?”
       2. “Are you still with me on that?”
12. Focus on the value of your solution.
    1. Don’t focus on the features, but on the value.
    2. How this solution is going to positively affect their life.
       1. Not on ‘we’re going to do this and this’.
    3. You said if we do A and B, it’s going to result in C and D.  Here’s how we’re going to accomplish that.
       1. How it is going to positively affect their organization.
13. Keep the presentation short.
    1. If you’ve done a good job during discovery:
       1. You have a good idea on how to solve their problems.
       2. Then Stop!
          1. Only present to the challenges they’ve mentioned.
14. Make the presentation a back and forth.
    1. Top sales performers have a lot more back and forth and keep the prospect engaged.
15. Establish next steps.
    1. “Do you have your calendar on you?”
       1. Don’t set ‘next Monday’
    2. Send the invite immediately
       1. You’ll hold on to many more sales this way.
    3. This keeps the momentum going.