Who defines what value is? You got it \u2013 THE CUSTOMER. Today\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SO, you reached out to your customers and engaged them in a way that put them squarely in the picture. By doing so, you\u2019ve made a promise to them to identify and deliver value from their perspective. Well, who defines what value is? You got it \u2013 THE CUSTOMER. Today\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/em>. You\u2019ve engaged them with insight, now you can begin to reframe their thinking by drawing out unmet needs and connecting them to potential solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you did some research, you may have found an unmet need, to which you may have a potential solution. Let\u2019s distinguish between a need and a solution\u2026they are different. Needs are verbs \u2013 having the need TO take action to solve a problem. Whereas solutions are nouns \u2013 the product that solves that problem. They don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In keeping with the Balanced Seller\u00ae 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 \u201cheads down\u201d environment everyone is operating in, here\u2019s your moment to go \u201cheads up\u201d 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:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Follow the rules of engagement<\/strong>. You\u2019re 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\u2019t lead the witness with closed questions because you think time is too limited to do otherwise. Engagement is them talking, not you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plans are useless, planning is indispensable<\/strong>. (Good point, Gen. Eisenhower) Take the time to prepare good questions so that you don\u2019t 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 \u201cmust ask\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Practice the art of good questioning<\/strong>. I\u2019ve 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\u2019s witnessed reps ask great questions but fail to listen to the answers. It\u2019s not about the questions but about what their responses reveal. Listen to the answers you\u2019re getting and base your next question on cues from the customer. A good strategy is to \u201cdouble click\u201d on answers you hear to dig deeper behind the meaning of what the customer is saying. Listen closely for what isn\u2019t being said, the underlying messages, the emotion the customer is putting forward. Fear? Resistance? Hesitation? Curiosity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ask more questions than you answer<\/strong>. Customers who know you will try to gain control of the conversation by asking, \u201cwhat have you got for me today?\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ask questions about everything BUT product<\/strong>. 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\u2019t); Plans and Initiatives; People; Personal Motivators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Value is in the eyes of the customer. Show you understand the customer\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Who defines what value is? You got it \u2013 THE CUSTOMER. Today\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1149,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"883","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[22,20,18,19,15,14,21,16],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/versabilityllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/versabilityllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/versabilityllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versabilityllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versabilityllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1148"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/versabilityllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1171,"href":"https:\/\/versabilityllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions\/1171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versabilityllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/versabilityllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versabilityllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versabilityllc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}