| Idea of the Week |
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| This is a weekly column transcribed from my Radio Show. "Idea of the Week" is the segment of the show in which I explore in depth one sales technique that you can apply right away. Roll up your sleeves, and sharpen your pencil. This is an ACTION idea! |
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The second reason people fail is they forget that in the sales business they have to graduate to that Step Six that I alluded to earlier. They have to learn, we have to learn how to ask for the commitment. When I was new in sales I was what's called a professional visitor. I was a straight commission professional visitor. How much money do you think I made as a straight commission professional visitor? Not too much. I was good at opening doors, talking to people, finding out what their needs were. But unless they said, "I'll buy that", I walked out the door without the business every single time. I never learned how to become a professional salesperson by asking for commitments. You might say, "Oh, there Warren goes. He's going to talk about these closing techniques. I think those are manipulative." And you know what, folks? You're absolutely right. I'm not talking about closing. I'm talking about asking. And after the break I'm going to tell you exactly what that means.
How do you really rise to the top as a sales professional? It's understanding that third reason salespeople fail. Actually it's the second reason I talked about today. And that is that we as a sales profession aren't willing to ask for commitments. We're like me. We're like me as a new salesperson: a professional visitor. Now why is it that as salespeople we tend to get stuck in what I call Step Five, Present the Solution, talk about the features and benefits of our product? The reason is we think that if we ask somebody to do something, that we're being pushy. The fact is your customers are relying on you to ask them to make a commitment because they need to think in their own mind, "Should I do this, or shouldn't I? What are the benefits? Should I move forward? Should I not move forward?" And we as salespeople do anything to stick in Step Five.
At my seminars I say, "OK, Step Six is ask for a commitment, and there are only two rules. Number one is ask an obligating question. OK audience, somebody give me an example of an obligating question." I am amazed at how many times I stare at the audience, and they stare at me. I can see them shuffling in their seats. They're uncomfortable. Usually it takes ten, twelve, fifteen seconds for someone to say something.
I acknowledge that person; I tell them what a great thing it was that they just asked an obligating question. And then I say to the audience, "You know, look at what just happened. As an industry, we have to know fifty, sixty, eighty, a hundred different ways to ask for commitments. And when I posed the question, we just sit there dumbfounded. That proves that as an industry we're professional visitors, not professional salespeople."
Then I tell the story about all these books that were written about closing. The Secrets of Closing the Sale. Master Closing. The Master Academy of Closing. And you know what I say to that? It's bunk. In order to be a successful salesperson, all we need to do is learn how to ask the right questions. Let me give you some examples. "Are you ready to go forward? Where do we stand? How are we doing so far? Would you like to take delivery on that? Have I earned the right to your business? Who else do we need to speak with? Where do we go from here? Who's going to cut the PO? How do you want to pay for it?" These are all examples of obligating questions. And what we need to teach ourselves as sales professionals is to ask the question.
And then here are the two most important words I ever say during my seminars, and they are the two most important words you're going to hear on the show today. Every time you ask an obligating question, shut up. Now because we're on the radio, I'm not going to do what I usually do in my live seminars. But when I say "shut up", I do shut up. And I stare at the audience and I don't say a word. I count in my head, and depending on my mood, I'll either go five seconds, eight seconds, eleven seconds, twelve seconds, fifteen seconds. After eight seconds the whole audience is uncomfortable. They're thinking, "Did he forget where he is? Are we going to break for lunch now?"
And then I say to the audience, "OK, that was seven, eight, eleven seconds of silence." Why are we so uncomfortable with silence? Two reasons. Number one, as salespeople we're trained to talk. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And the other thing is when we ask an obligating question, the person who is going to decide if they're going to buy or not goes through something that we all go through. It's called temporary insanity. Every buyer goes crazy before they make a decision to buy. Sometimes it takes a second or a minute or whatever. The longest I've ever had to wait is fifty-seven seconds.
Even if you're deciding if you're going to have a bagel or a hamburger for lunch, you go temporarily insane before you make a decision. Sometimes it takes a fraction of a second and you don't even know it. But you are emotionally unstable while you're deciding to buy or not buy. As salespeople all we need to learn is to be comfortable with the silence, and then be neutral as to the outcome of every question. If they say no, that's fine; if they say yes, that's fine; if they say maybe, that's not fine. We need to turn a maybe into a yes or a no. But once we get good at asking obligating questions, we will be amazed at how quickly our sales will go up and our customer base will grow. We will have many more satisfied customers once we take that leap of faith and we become professional salespeople and not professional visitors.
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| Warren's Favorite's |
Obligating Questions
The best way to learn how to ask obligating questions is to think about the phrase "what's next?"
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The Elevator Speech
There are skills to networking. One of the first things you'll need to do is condense a description of yourself...
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I
provide these valuable resources free of
charge for you to train your sales staff. However,
there are some restrictions on the use of
materials found on this site. Please see my Use Policy.
If you have questions or comments, please
contact me. |
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– Warren
Wechsler |
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