Finding new people to buy your product or service is the most important part of the sales process. Your ability to prospect effectively—to find people who want and need your product or service, and are willing to buy and pay for it in the short term—is the key to your success.
People do not buy products or services. They buy results or benefits. They buy the change or improvement that they expect to enjoy as the result of purchasing your product or service. Start the prospecting process by sitting down and making a list of all the benefits that a customer could enjoy by using your product or service in different ways.
If you have a variety of benefits, organize them by priority and determine the greatest single benefit that a customer would experience. In addition, if your product offers several benefits, each of these benefits may appeal to a different type of customer.
The next stage in prospecting is for you to define exactly the prospect or person who would be most likely to buy your product or service, and buy it immediately. This requires that you define your product or service in one of four different ways.
First, what problem would an ideal customer have that your product can solve? You are looking for people who have a problem that they are willing to pay you to solve for them. You uncover this problem by asking good questions and listening closely to the answers.
Problems fall into three categories. The first is that they are obvious and clear. The customer knows she has a problem and knows what it is.
The second is that they are not obvious and are unclear. The prospect has a problem but does not know what it is and therefore is unclear about what to do to solve it. One of the great breakthrough areas in modern selling is when you can show customers that they have a problem that they did not know they had, and how you can take that problem away in a cost-effective manner.
The third type of problem is the nonexistent problem. Quite often, when you call on a prospect, seeking a person who has a problem that your product can solve, you find that the customer really does not have that problem at all. They do not need what you are selling. They are doing just fine as they are.
Second, you look for prospects who have a need that has not yet been fulfilled. Needs are what trigger buying desire and buying behavior. Many people have needs but do not know that there is a product you can sell them that would satisfy that need. This is usually why they greet an initial sales approach with words such as, “I’m not interested,” or “I’m not in the market right now.”
Exactly what need does your product or service satisfy that your customer is willing to pay you for?
The third quality of good prospects is that they have a goal that they have not yet been able to achieve. It can be anything from weight loss to financial independence, to higher income and more rapid promotion in their job. What goal can your product or service uniquely help the customer achieve?
One of the best questioning strategies is to ask customers about their long-term goals. The greater clarity that people have about the goals that they wish to achieve, the better prospects they will be and the faster they will buy what you are selling—as long as your product helps them to achieve those goals in a cost-effective way.
Finally, you are looking for a prospect who has a pain, concern, worry, or stress that you can help to alleviate or take away. A simple question such as “What keeps you awake at night?” will often open up a torrent of selling opportunities.
In the final analysis, from the time of the ancient Sumerian markets of 5,000 B.C., customers have only and always bought one thing: improvement.
What improvement in the life or work of your customer does your product or service offer? Customers buy in anticipation of how much better off they will be after they have bought and used your product than they were before they experienced it. You must be clear about the benefit or improvement, and you must make it clear to your customers that they will enjoy that benefit or improvement.
If you sell to businesses, their needs are very simple. They want to either increase their sales and profitability, or to decrease their costs and expenses. They want to save or gain time or money. They want to improve their business operations in some way.
Business customers determine the value of your product or service, and what they are willing to pay, by the difference between the price you charge and the financial benefits they will enjoy as the result. Both must be clear to your prospects before they can make a buying decision.
The good news is that if you ask enough questions and listen carefully to the answers, your prospects will tell you everything you need to know to present your product as the best choice for them, all things considered.
One of the biggest challenges of prospecting is overcoming the fear of rejection. To overcome this fear of rejection, there is a simple technique that you can use. Resolve today to use what I call the “hundred call method.”
This method requires that you go out immediately and call on 100 new prospects as fast as you possibly can. The difference here is that you do not really care very much whether or not they buy. Your focus is on the number of prospects that you call on, not your sales results.
There seems to be a wonderful point of balance between wanting the sale too much and wanting the sale too little. When you achieve that point of balance, where you want the sale but you don’t particularly care if it comes through, you become the most effective salesperson you can possibly be.
When you implement the hundred call method in your life, and you call on 100 different people as quickly as you can, at the end of the process you will have become totally fearless. With regard to rejection, you will have ice water in your veins. You will be totally unafraid of calling on anybody at any time. For the rest of your career you will actually look forward to prospecting because you know that every prospecting call moves you one step closer to a successful sale.
1. Identify your ideal customers, and the problem, need, or goal they have that will cause them to buy from you.
2. Resolve today to double your “face time” and spend more time each day with prospects who can and will buy from you in a short period of time.