Marketers and Salespeople do the same thing and often try to prescribe solutions before a genuine diagnosis has been discovered. And if you prescribe something without a proper diagnosis, just like a doctor, you’re going to be up for malpractice.
A good doctor will sit back and ask, “where does it hurt? How much does it hurt? What sort of pain is it?”, all to better understand the problem so they can either diagnose correctly or order more tests to get to the bottom of it.
So, take the same approach in your sales process.
By using the information, you uncover by asking the right kind of questions, you’ll learn what’s causing their pain. Then you can confidently and with the clients’ trust be able to prescribe what’s needed.
In my previous blog Are Your Marketing Messages Clear and Unique I talked about how positioning your marketing messages so you stand out from the crowd will lead to greater success. In this blog, I want to look at it from a sales perspective and how being a “Doctor of selling” is the key to closing the deals
Just as in Marketing, in sales a lot of people will use the same better faster cheaper tactics, however in high quality sales conversations professionals will spend time delving deeper to fully understand and diagnose a prospect’s pain points. And I don’t just mean saying “tell me more about your problems”, we need to ask questions that demonstrate a prior knowledge.
Some examples are
- What have they done to try and solve them over the course of the last year?
- Why hasn’t that worked?
- In ballpark figures what do they think it’s costing to not fix the issue?
- How important is it to get that solved?
By taking this approach you’ll be able to grasp the depth of the issues and find new and improved ways to solve their problems, and not sell them on the same ideas they have already tried and have failed.
So Doctor, is there a pill for that?
Depending on the diagnosis there could be either a quick fix or a long road ahead. If it’s the latter, sometimes it can be a hard pill to swallow but because you’ve taken the time to understand the problem, build trust and ask high quality questions clients are more inclined to listen and take action (even though it may be arduous).
Then it all comes down to integrity.
Once you’ve figured out their problem, can you genuinely solve it? If you reach the end of this process and aren’t sure whether you can in fact solve their problem, then you need to be honest and say so. No good can come from you making empty promises to a new client or doing a few odd jobs to make a little bit of money.
When seeking medical advice, people are looking for help. It’s the same when someone is responding to your marketing. They have a need or are having an issue they can’t solve themselves so are on the hunt for a solution. It’s your job to understand exactly what their issues are to be able to give your best advice and offer a product to solve the problem. But remember, if you go through all of this and the client or prospect does not take your advice, skips appointments, or leaves without paying… Do not resuscitate.
Matthew
