Coaching the Sale – Part 1 – Build Rapport and Trust by Asking Questions.

Coaching seems to be everywhere and nearly every other person at networking events these days seems to be a coach. Whilst this can be irritating, there is no smoke without fire! It is easy to be dismissive of coaching as a FAD however you can’t ignore how huge the industry is and there must be a reason why.

My view – Coaching skills are relevant personally, professionally across all industries and roles . Its not about being a coach it’s about using coaching skills to be a better sales person, a better manager, a better leader, a better parent.

Asking questions is at the core of coaching. What a great number of sales people need to learn is to do less telling and ask more questions. Through questions we can better understand the challenge a prospect faces and therefore propose the best solution.

The Coaching model GROW is the most widely know and used, the R represents Reality. It is unlikely that the first problem or issue that a person presents is really the problem. Questions allow you to get under the skin, to get to the reality, often described as peeling layers off an onion.

Uncovering the Reality is hugely important in Sales.

• What is the prospects real challenge
• What is really driving this person to look at your solution
• What are the real reasons they won’t return your call
• What are the real benefits they need to see above all others
• What can they really afford to spend

By training sales people to ask better questions, actively listen, to feel comfortable with their own silence and asking for feedback will improve the quality of a relationship between prospect and salesperson. Ultimately this coaching approach leads to shortened sales cycles as proposals more frequently meet the clients exact needs and ultimately more sales.

If putting yourself or your sales team through coach training is not high up on your priorities, how about trying this out.

 Try this out

With your next prospect meeting try this….

1. Ask questions for the first half of the meeting, don’t talk about your product or solution.
2. Give your prospect space to answer and allow silence to happen, often they will fill the silence for you and tell you more than they would normally.
3. Don’t follow a list of questions like a survey, allow the conversation to take its own course let the prospect drive it, let them talk.
4. Use the second half of the meeting to highlight where your product or solutions meets some of the specific things they have mentioned. Repeat their words back to them show them you have listened and understood. Avoid talking about your solution in too much detail.
5. When  you do tell them something always follow it up with an open question immediately, “What do you think of that”, “How would this solve your problem”, “What can I do to help you make this happen?”
6. Clearly the aim is not to piss them off, if you feel they are becoming irritated by your questions ask them. “would you like to discuss what we can do for you? Or are you happy for me to ask you a few more questions?”.

The aim is to have a free flowing conversation where the prospect feels in control, relaxed and listened to. Building rapport and trust quickly and giving the prospect space to share exactly what they think and need. The closer you get to the Reality the closer you are to winning the business.

Sales Referrals Part 2 – Where to look for referrals

So where can we find the best referrals?

Here are a few places to look:

1. Clients – This is obvious in the sense that most referrals come from delighted clients. We often fail to ask long-standing clients or customers on a regular basis, such as monthly. When they love us enough to continue doing business with us, it’s very likely that they can and will continue to send us new referrals for additional business. When these clients mention to the referral how beneficial we’ve been to them, the referral is much more strongly predisposed to do business with us as well.
2. Friends – Our circle of friends can be a tremendous source of referral business. Because of this, it’s important that our close friends know what we do and how we add value to our existing customers. When our friends also understand our ideal customer or client profile, they’re better able to look around for prospective referrals for us.
3. Suppliers – Strong relationships with suppliers can result in great referral business. This is particularly true when a supplier offers unrelated services to the same types of organizations as we do. For example, you would want to ask your accountant, web designer, executive coach, business advisor for referrals when especially when looking for B2B referrals.
4. Family members – This is a red flag for many of us who have sworn not to mix business with family. Nonetheless, those of us who have benefited from referrals through family know the value of asking politely and following up promptly.
5. Competitors – Bare with me on this, if you know who your competitors are and what niches they specialise in then a conversation about how you can support one another with appropriate business referrals is worth having. This may not work for all organisation however for many SMEs and consultants a partnership / associate model can provide a rich source of new opportunities. One way to start this dialogue is to develop an industry group, where you and your competitors can start a dialogue, e.g. Finanical Leeds. Or set up a LinkedIn Group.

How to ask for the referral

As mentioned above, people we already know, both inside and outside of our business relationships, can provide us valuable referrals. These people aren’t likely, however, to be seeking us out daily to give us the names and phone numbers of qualified prospects. So how do we get them?

We need to ask for them! Oversimplified?……….Yes, and yet there are certain approaches proven to be very effective in asking for the referral.

How we ask for referrals is a key point in the process. Consider this approach:

“Do you know anyone who can benefit from…….?”

In this situation, we give the referral source a choice between yes and no. This gives us approximately a 50/50 chance that the answer will be no.

Let’s increase the odds in our favor.

First, we need to help our referral source by starting the thought process on his/her behalf. Next, we need to move from the yes/no choice to a choice between yeses. Compare this more specific approach:

 ”Which businesses in your organisation would benefit from…..?”  Or,

 ”Who among your friends might benefit from…..?”

By being more specific, we’ve both helped the referral source focus on a single area and increased our chances of getting a name or two.

In working with delighted clients, try this approach:

“Much of our new business comes from people such as you who are already in [insert as appropriate]. Who among your friends elsewhere in the industry could benefit from the results you are seeing?”

This reinforces the value we add to our current customer and opens the door for referral opportunities with non-competing organizations. This can be particularly valuable when our customer or client views our work with him/her as a competitive advantage

Keep an eye out for part 3 where the focus is on how to contact referrals and a process for managing them.