How to Quickly Gain an Unfair Advantage in Sales

Earning new business sales is hard work, no doubt. There are numerous things that need to happen to be successful and many different ways one might go about accomplishing the sale. The question becomes, what is the most successful approach and how do we make sure we are doing it?

Recently I completed three straight days of sales training with 14 companies in attendance. When asked the question, "do you put your customers’ needs and interests before your own", the overwhelming majority of people enthusiastically said YES! But as we dove into how their typical sales conversations went, they quickly realized that while they started off asking good questions that were customer needs focused, they quickly resorted back to selling a product or service. This has been my experience for the past 20+ years. Most sales people start out being “consultative” or having a “problem solver” approach, but as soon as the customer mentions something they can fix, they solve it immediately. BIG MISTAKE. Failing to continue asking great questions and listening to answers so you get a full picture of what all is going on kills the sales process.

If you want an unfair advantage in sales, then learn to resist solving problems (for the moment). Concentrate on asking questions that engage the prospect in thought and deeper conversation. If a customer tells you that the price they are paying is “too high” mentioning that you are the low cost leader sounds like a good idea, right? WRONG! Ask what about the price is too high. Find out how they value price and what they might be willing to give up to lower it. If they say they aren’t willing to give up anything, then determine if price is the only thing they need to make a change. Most of the time, it’s not price at all, but rather they aren’t getting the value they believe they deserve for the price!

Here’s the thing, price is an easy objection. EVERYONE wants to pay the least amount and get the most value. The question is, what is your value and how do you get the prospect to pay for it? The answer is by understanding the prospect and ALL of their needs. To truly have an unfair advantage, stop selling and start understanding. When you have all of the facts and the situation is crystal clear, then and only then can you paint a picture of their current scenario, what you will specifically do for them, and how it will solve not some, but all of their issues. Most sales people won’t take the time to dig this deep so the unfair advantage is yours for the taking.

Feel free to reach out if you have a question about your sales process and how you can get better results.

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About the author Gary owns Kieper Sales Solutions and created the Selfless SalesTM Process to help teach clients how to truly become customer needs focused so that they can win new business by truly solving their clients’ problems and has been helping sales people reach their professional goals for over 20 years.