Sales Skill: Listening for Key Words and Taper Questions to UncoverProblems

ARTICLE: – By Eric Slife

Any sales manager or sales trainer will tell you one of the most effectiveskills top sales professionals possess is the ability to obtain accurateand valuable information from their clients and prospects. Being able to extract quality information results in the following:

- Fewer objections

- A better closing percentage

- More referrals

- Fewer headaches after the sale

- Etc.

To effectively determine what your prospect or client needs, you need to learn two critical fact finding skills:

1. Listening for specific key words, and

2. Tapering you questions.

First, start by asking your prospect a non-threatening open-endedquestion. Why? You haven’t established enough trust or rapport to askpersonal questions. Asking a possibly threatening question right away willprobably result in a less than truthful answer from your prospect.

Once your prospect starts talking, start writing down your prospect’s keywords on your notepad. What are the key words? Look at the following 3 sentences:

1. Our copier is always broken. Do you have something more reliable?

2. Our computers are slow. We need something faster.

3. Our website is always down. I need better service.

In the first example, write down “always broken” and “more reliable.” Insentence number two, write down “slow” and “something faster.” Finally,the key words in sentence three are “always down” and “better service.”Before you move on, ask, “Is their anything else?” and write down thosekey words.

Next, start with your first key words and start to taper your questions. As you do this, keep listening for additional key words. For example:

Salesperson: “What do you mean by your copier is always broken?”

Prospect: “It continues to feed 2 pages at a time, and the quality is poor.” (Note: “poor quality” another key phrase that needs to beexplained, so write it down.)

Salesperson: “Are you doing a specific job that is causing it to feed 2 ata time?”

Prospect: “When we make our manuals, we use heavier paper that our currentvendor says is difficult on the feeder, and they can’t fix it.”

Salesperson: “Tell more about the heavier paper you are running, and theother jobs you do.”

Prospect: “Well we do…”

Salesperson: “When your feeder pulls in 2 pages, what happens to yourbusiness?”

Prospect: “We can’t do anything until they come and fix it.”

Salesperson: “How long does that take?”

Prospect: “3 days.”

Salesperson: “How much does this cost you?”

Prospect: “It costs us $500 to have an outside printer make our manuals.”

At this point, I may ask them more about the manuals or more about their outside costs. The point is, by tapering down the key words “always broken,” you have narrowed down specifically what they mean by always broken. In addition, you have uncovered the consequences and costs of being “always broken.”

In addition, tapering your questions has revealed potential problems with their current vendor, and given you more insight into the exact nature of how they use their product or service. All of this additional information is the result of listening for key words and continuing to narrow down your questioning until you have been given specific information.

To make your questioning even more effective, help your prospect quantify their problem. For example:

- Do they have to outsource their project?

- What about lost revenue?

- Finally, how much has the downtime cost them in lost labor?

Salesperson: When you present your proposal state: Mr. or Miss Customer you mentioned you are experiencing the following problems… Are there any other problems?

Customer: No that’s it.

Salesperson: You also stated it is costing you so many dollars. Is this correct?

Customer: That’s correct.

Salesperson: I want to show you how we can help you solve these problems by the following…

By tapering keywords you, you have uncovered how much their problems are costing their company. In addition, you have helped them justify the expense for your solution. Finally, your prospect will trust your proposal more, because you better understand their situation compared to yourcompetition.

About the Author: Eric Slife is the President of Slife Sales Training, Inc. and founder ofwww.salestrainingcamp.com. Sign up for our free sales newsletters and getover $240 in sales training products and services for absolutely freehttp://www.salestrainingcamp.com/overture_salestraining.htm!

Contact Information:

Eric Slife

Slife Sales Training, Inc.4320

West Eaglerock PlaceWenatchee, WA 98801

eric@salestrainingcamp.com

www.salestrainingcamp.com