Sales people feel good when they are transferring knowledge to others, but they need to think as carefully about what information they receive from clients as they do about their presentations.
It is not surprising that sales people are comfortable talking about their products and services, they know the features and how to present them. Questioning clients is more difficult as it is a less defined path, especially if the client is perceived to be more senior.
At Mdina Partnership we are often requested to help with sales teams who all too quickly go into presentation mode with their clients without exploring the target business needs and key decision drivers.
How to solve this? If you are not in a position to use an external training company, here is an idea that we use in some of our sales development sessions.
1. At the next internal development programme, advise the sales team that they are going to do some role plays (we call it Action Learning, but everyone sees through this and groans!).
2. Develop an “out-of-industry” role play where you create a client with a Need and a sales person who has been asked to go and see the client. The role playing sales person sells a range of a well known goods or services that are unrelated to your business. For example, if you sell photocopiers, make the role plays about selling commercial drinks vending machines.
The sales person has little or no knowledge of the products he or she has to sell in the role play so they are forced to use good questioning instead to understand the client's needs. If the sales person does not have a questioning plan, then this soon becomes obvious.
During our training programmes we ask the teams we're working with to develop some key questions which they then prioritise related to their industry and clients. We help them develop a structure for each meeting (ensuring that they retain their own personalities) which increases the confidence in managing each sales meeting.
3. When the sales person eventually presents their solution, it is tailored to what they have just learned from the client and this is much more effective for sales, profit and forecasting.
When reviewing the role play and explain the full scenario, ask the group what they would do differently next time. Typically this raises awareness of the importance of asking good questions and the pit falls of relying too much on product knowledge.
If handled positively this is a very effective developmental approach – good luck.
Mark Jacobs - Mdina Partnership Ltd
