Selling with your ears
Written on February 4, 2006 by Conor O'Neill
A few years back we were pitching to a large customer for a piece of work. This customer had a lot of problems and we spent two days listening to them pour their hearts out to us. Towards the end we identified a few specific things we would be able to improve for them in a major way and limited our commitments to that. As we were leaving, they thanked us for being the first vendor in a long time who really listened properly to them and didn’t just try to sell them a bunch of inappropriate software. Unsurprisingly, we still do a lot of business with them.
That meeting was brought to mind by Guy Kawasaki’s recent posting on The Art of Schmoozing. His third point in particular addresses how we have always sold our services: “Ask good questions and then shut up”. Keep it in mind the next time you want to get to the heart of a customer’s needs.
Technorati Tags: Schmoozing, Selling, Listening, Guy Kawasaki
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This makes sense. I liked Kawasaki’s article, and he’s on Typepad like us. Asking questions shows that you want to understand the client’s business. Shutting up shows that you can listen. Not many people do it well nowadays. Some salesmen are awful, I almost hand on the phone when I receive a telesales call out of morbid curiousity!
Good articles on asking questions at http://www.justsell.com. And you should check out the beyond-belief-cheesily-titled book “Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive” (it came out in the 80s, explains the title) by Harvey MacKay.