Ever notice that when you go to the doctor, you get asked a lot of open ended questions while the physician says little? Much like a doctor, sales people help buyers with problems by asking questions and saying little. Rather, that is what the good sales people do.
The patient replies with answers which are like objections. The doctor, ever inquisitive and wise, helps the patient make the best choices for a healthier life. At the end of the visit, the patient is given a prescription for medicine. The doctor’s opinion is seldom challenged since we are taught to believe what the “good” doctor says.
When a buyer and a salesperson meet there are also probing questions. The buyer talks the most while the “good” sales person listens and takes notes. With the questions answered, the skilled salesperson normally offers a “prescription” to solve the customer’s problem. Hopefully, the customer buys, but that is not always the case.
If the buyer is not buying the sales person’s medicine it generally means one of two things:
– The customer doesn’t think that he/she is sick.
– The customer doesn’t think that seller is really a doctor.
If the buyer does not feel sick it means that the sales person has not identified the buyer’s needs nor matched them with the benefits of the solution. Sometimes it means that the seller might not be selling to a qualified buyer.
If the buyer does not think the seller is a doctor, it means that they don’t trust you or that they don’t like you. This distrust of the sales person is common since buyers have learned to distrust and even dislike sales people. This is because of repeated negative encounters with other bad sales people who don’t listen and who talk too much.
Try acting like a doctor and not like a sales person. Now cough.
John Bradley Jackson
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