SOLUTION 15

FIND OUT WHAT YOUR BUYER WANTS

Some salespeople believe that offering buyers too many choices can ruin a sale. Your job, as a responsible and helpful seller, is to make sure that the buyer is offered the most appropriate choices. You must ask appropriate questions to narrow down the options, then present products or services that fit your buyer’s agreed-upon needs.

IDENTIFY THE CUSTOMER NEED

With experience you will be able to make a good guess at your customer’s current needs, but not until they make a purchase or ask you a question will you know for sure.

To understand a customer’s needs you must treat each as an individual. Listen to what he has to say, read how he says it, relate to what he is telling you, and then respond appropriately. Apply these four easy steps and you won’t go far wrong.

How can you quickly determine what type of person you are dealing with and how that person prefers to be helped in the buying process? The Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a method of identifying and communicating the personalities of individuals. Personality types are coded based on attitudes (extroversion, introversion); functions (sensing, intuition, thinking, feeling); and lifestyles (judging, perceiving). MBTI can help salespeople understand themselves, their prospective buyers, and how best to inter-relate with them. More information is available online at www.myersbriggs.org.

ANTICIPATING PROSPECT NEEDS

Products and services are designed and marketed to solve specific problems that an identified group of buyers has. Reviewing a list of product features and benefits can help you to analyze who your potential prospects are. For example, if what you are selling is displays designed to increase traffic into a retail-clothing store, then your prospects, obviously, are clothing retailers.

The benefits list may continue with specifics that can help you focus your prospect definition even more.

PRODUCT FEATURE	BUYER TRAIT
Displays are easily moved to entryways.	The prospective store is either on a street or in a shopping centre that allows and has security for large outside displays.
Display components can be changed to fit a variety of clothing merchandise.	The prospective store offers a variety of clothing and prefers to rotate what the rack holds.
Displays include signage racks.	The prospective store wants to draw attention to the displays.

QUICK FIX: ASK YOUR BUYERS

Don’t depend just on your own perceptions of what buyers want. Ask prospective buyers how they make their buying decisions. What do they consider? What do they want from the seller? How could their current sales source be improved?