Who defines what value is? You got it – THE CUSTOMER. Today’s we look at how to avoid the temptation to tell them all about the ways you can provide value and use good questioning to draw out the value from them.
SO, you reached out to your customers and engaged them in a way that put them squarely in the picture. By doing so, you’ve made a promise to them to identify and deliver value from their perspective. Well, who defines what value is? You got it – THE CUSTOMER. Today’s post is about how to avoid the temptation to tell them all about the ways you can provide value and use good questioning to draw out the value from them.
Remember the good news from my last post: buyers still make time for and invite early engagement from a small subset of sellers who provide perspective and insights to reframe their thinking. You’ve engaged them with insight, now you can begin to reframe their thinking by drawing out unmet needs and connecting them to potential solutions.
If you did some research, you may have found an unmet need, to which you may have a potential solution. Let’s distinguish between a need and a solution…they are different. Needs are verbs – having the need TO take action to solve a problem. Whereas solutions are nouns – the product that solves that problem. They don’t NEED a product package that combines your individual products into one SKU; they need to save time or cost in managing inventory, so consolidating SKUs could be the solution to that.
In keeping with the Balanced Seller® approach of putting the customer in picture, your questions should take into account what may be driving their buying behaviors. The event of Covid-19 has shifted their world and created problems that need to be solved, leading to a search for solutions. In this “heads down” environment everyone is operating in, here’s your moment to go “heads up” and help them think about the problem statement, better define the need, and shape the solution for them. This is powerful insight you offer as a balanced seller. Some ideas for how to do that:
Follow the rules of engagement. You’re in a virtual setting now, so if you thought you had little time to ask questions before, you probably have even less time now. Maximize question impact by asking them in an open-ended way to uncover and validate needs, encouraging the customer to talk and define value. Don’t lead the witness with closed questions because you think time is too limited to do otherwise. Engagement is them talking, not you.
Plans are useless, planning is indispensable. (Good point, Gen. Eisenhower) Take the time to prepare good questions so that you don’t fall into the trap of only asking questions to qualify the customer for your intended product solution. Your pre-call plan gives you the framework of questions to work from but is not a rigid script of “must ask” questions. Use the planning process to help you play out different scenarios in how the customer might respond, and work to make those routes efficient for the moment of contact.
Practice the art of good questioning. I’ve stolen this phrase from a longstanding client (#ChrisWalker) who has taught, applied, and coached all of the best practices around asking high impact questions. He’s witnessed reps ask great questions but fail to listen to the answers. It’s not about the questions but about what their responses reveal. Listen to the answers you’re getting and base your next question on cues from the customer. A good strategy is to “double click” on answers you hear to dig deeper behind the meaning of what the customer is saying. Listen closely for what isn’t being said, the underlying messages, the emotion the customer is putting forward. Fear? Resistance? Hesitation? Curiosity?
Ask more questions than you answer. Customers who know you will try to gain control of the conversation by asking, “what have you got for me today?” Resist the urge to start offering advice or solutions; explain the value of asking a few questions and then use them to get the customer talking. If the customer asks you a question, ask one in return to clarify the reason behind the question. Customer questions are fantastic clues into what is important to them, so double click on them to get at their underlying intention.
Ask questions about everything BUT product. The art of good questioning is a dance between questions, clarity, listening, and understanding. Stay away from questions that qualify for your product. Instead, explore the underlying situation that would create the need for your solutions. To get the full picture of what is pressuring them and where unmet needs are lurking, ask questions about: Processes; the Past (a good indicator of what worked and didn’t); Plans and Initiatives; People; Personal Motivators.
Value is in the eyes of the customer. Show you understand the customer’s problem, maybe even as well as or even better than they do. The questions you ask are only as good as the answers you truly listen to and understand clearly.