This week, I will tell you how Guided Selling can support you in the process of helping a customer make a purchase. Qualify quickly
If you want to use your time efficiently, it is important to find out quickly if:
- your prospect has made a request that interests you
- you can meet your prospect’s request
Knock-out criteria
Actually, you help your prospect make a selection by going through ‘knock-out’ criteria with him. A Guided Selling system helps you ask your prospect the right questions, making it possible for you both to discover whether you need to take the next step. Saying goodbye when needed is professional and saves you both time and effort. Taking the next step together based on clear criteria speeds up the purchasing process.
Saying goodbye or taking the next step
In a good Guided Selling system, you will put together qualifying questions and answers, including weighing factors if necessary. Filling out the questionnaire helps you make complete and correct qualifications based on objective criteria. After that, it’s up to you to decide whether to follow the advice given: saying goodbye or taking the next step.
Formulate the right question at the right time
If you ask too many questions too quickly, you will often not get an answer – or not the right answer. Your prospect will only give you more detailed information once you have won his trust. Furthermore, a lot of questions are only pertinent later on (for example those on installation details). So its better to save those questions for later, so that you can concentrate on the questions that are important right now and that can help you and your prospect move a step further. A good Guided Selling system only asks these questions when necessary. In this way, you do not slow down the purchasing process by discussing unnecessary minor details.
Steps that can be taken consecutively – along with the right questions – can be:
- Needs analysis
- Product selection
- Product configuration
- Cost price calculation
- Margin definition
- Price definition
In fact the system helps you through the sales ‘funnel’, by which you are led from general questions to specific questions that go with the stage of the purchasing process you have reached.
Ask sufficient questions
If you ask too few questions (because you are apprehensive or because you forgot to ask them), you may miss something important. Something you should have known about. This can lead to you producing an incomplete quotation or order. In this way, unnecessary costs are incurred because you forgot to offer something you should not have forgotten. Following different reasoning: asking questions about things your prospect hadn’t thought of improves the professional impression you make. A well-organized Guided Selling system helps you ask the right questions at the right time and not to forget anything.
Buying or selling?
In all the situations described, it is crucial that you ask questions from the buyer’s perspective. He needs to be able to take the next step using information you provide. And you can only discover which information he needs by asking the right questions.
