DJGold

MusicMachine · Joined: June 27th, 2008 Posts: 11 Location: Blountville, TN

At your interviews, do you spent more time telling or asking? If you were to record your sales interview, you’d probably find you are spending more time talking than you are asking questions and listening. You have two ears and one mouth. This is for a reason….listen, twice as much as you talk.

During a sales interview, the sales person must identify the needs, issues and concerns of the customer. The best way to achieve this is to ask questions, listen to the answers, and connect the answers to the needs and the needs to your product and services. The key is to ask questions. That is the starting point of all successful sales.

Questions are the sales professional’s most valuable tool. However, we all need to be reminded to ask the right question and ask the question right.

There are several types of questioning types and techniques. Let’s cover four types of questions that you can implement today. They are C.O.R.D. This stands for Closed Questions, Open Questions, Reflective Questions, and Direct-Agreement Questions.

Closed Questions
These are questions that have one-word or “closed” answers. At the beginning of the sale call, these should be seldom used. When using these, the sales person is not giving the customer an opportunity to expand on the answers. Closed questions usually uncover facts but often times don’t give any additional information. Let’s say you are trying to identify the buying criteria of a customer. You can ask: “Is cost important to you?” The answer may be “Yes.” The customer has just responded with a fact. You may have to ask another question to identify other important criteria. It may be better if you had asked an open question.

Open Questions
These questions solicit “open” information. You not only gain facts, but you also gain information. These questions usually begin with “who, what, why, why, where and how.” For example, when trying to identify buying criteria, you may want to use: “What are the comments you would like you guests to have after the reception?.” The answer to this question gives you more than just facts. It gives you insights into “why” these criteria are important.

Open questions are important because they give you vital information. You also receive another valuable insight, you start to identify how receptive the customer is to your sales approach. Is he/she eager to give your information or hesitant? Open questions allow you to gauge this.

Reflective Questions
These are questions that “reflect” on previous answers. These questions give the customer a chance to expand or expound on something that was mentioned earlier. The customer may have passed by a very important matter and you now want to go back and address it. You can use a reflective question to gain vital information. In the above conversation, the customer may mention her criteria is cost effectiveness. You can now go back and gain additional information with a reflective question. For example, “Ms. Customer, what did you mean by cost effectiveness?”

Reflective questions give you additional information. By using them, you are also indicating to the customer that you are listening to her!

Direct Agreement Questions
These questions gain “agreement” from the customer. These should be used when you are sure of the answer. They are usually answered with one word… and that word is usually “yes.” After you have shown the customer that you can deliver what they want, do it in a cost effective manner and create the event they envision , you can ask a direct agreement question. For example, “Ms. Customer, if we can meet your expectations, will we have an agreement?” If the answer is “yes,” the customer is agreeing that he’ll do business with you if you can meet his criteria.

Questions are a sales professional’s best asset. Learn to ask the right question in the right way. Good luck and good selling.

dokai · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 10:02 pm Post subject:

Outstanding post! If I was half as good a salesperson as I am a performer, I'd be turning down work daily. This is just the type of post I need to remind me that there's another whole aspect that I frequently neglect. Thanks for the reminder!

djmc · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:37 am Post subject:

Great advice for those of us who need to have Sales Interviews!

Thanks for the tips, for those rare times when I meet with a prospect before signing them....

Toneman · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 11:48 pm Post subject:

Outstanding advice.
I would say I'm OK with my sales approach. It's gottin me this far, but after reading following, I know that I can be better with my sales approach.

djmc · Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 6:04 pm Post subject:

I have found that I'm the complete OPPOSITE of a sales person.

If you're known as a "Wedding Expert", the brides will come to you BECAUSE of your knowledge and experience as a Wedding Vendor.

The key to success in the WEDDING Industry, is to rise to the top of the Wedding Vendor Food Chain.

Whenever a bride comes to me, having read my commentaries on Wedding Venues at YELP(dot)com, I listen to their choices (usually one or more are ones that I've recommended), and then hear that they saw MY reviews at City Search, KCRA, or YELP (or all three).

By the time I send out a proposal (in the mail) they are 90% certain of booking with me.

Right now, about 65% are sending the Service Agreement with Retainer by US MAIL.

Of the 35% who meet with me, I'm running a 90% closing ratio (due to my "soft" close).

Lately, my average meeting runs 20 minutes. If they don't have the checkbook out in that time, I cut things short (politely), and then explain that:

"...I am NOT a used car salesman & would like to you to make an unpressured decision, on your own time. I'm not going to make followup phone calls & pester you with "other folks want this date", but it happens to be true that there will be other couples calling in the next week or month to fill this date. So you know I'm on a first-come, first serve basis and will hold the date for 7 more days, and if I don't hear from you then the next person who calls will "bump" forward in line, is that OK with you?"

This usually results in quicker turnaround on the deposit.
Another thing is that I no longer say "I WILL BE YOUR DJ" on the contract unless they sign at the meeting. Otherwise, they leave with a proposal that states "DJ ASSIGNED AFTER PAYMENT OF RETAINER..."