Use the Magic Words in Consultative Selling
Use the Magic Words in Consultative Selling
E. Michael Shays CMC
At some point in a sales meeting with a client, a professional is expected to offer some course of action. If he or she has listened carefully, she will likely be completely aligned with the client. However it is also likely that the client hasn’t revealed some inner motivations that influence the decision to use a professional advisor. Offering a course of action becomes a gamble: If you read the client correctly you get client agreement. If you missed something the client said, or worse, did not say, you and your course of action face being dismissed.
The object is to bring the client in as a partici¬pant in the design of the solution, to get his fin¬gerprints on the course to be followed. You do this with these magic words:
1. “If we could [suggested professional approach], would that help?”
These words avoid locking the professional into an approach. The client’s response helps you understand what the client thinks is needed and in fact may help the client understand his own needs more clearly. If the suggested approach is not going to be helpful in the eyes of the client, there is now time and space to learn more about the need and to develop the appropriate solu¬tion, to negotiate an assignment, and to ob¬tain the client’s buy-in.
If the suggested approach is on target you are on your way to the next level of magic words. Since the best solution is a result of the professional and client working together to solve a problem, the best place to start this collaboration is with the next question:
2. “Let’s see how we might do that.”
This invites the client to work with you to structure an implementation of the approach that is satisfactory to the client and gets the client that much more involved in the sales process, which is a win-win outcome for both client and professional. The client is that much surer of getting what he needs, and you not only get a better understanding of the client’s expectations, but also brings the client closer to committing to a close.
The next question is just as important:
3. “Just what would be the benefits if we took this approach?”
The answer to this question will help you understand the value the client places on the solution under discussion and gets your client that much closer to agreeing to an engagement. The answer helps the client to understand the results she will have to reach. The answer also begins to give the professional a basis for a fair fee. This leads naturally to the next question:
4. “Let’s see if we can structure something that makes economic sense.”
At this point you may need to go off-line to develop a fee structure, but if you have sufficient experience in the environment and the approach agreed upon, this too could be developed collaboratively with the client. Since the best consulting is a collaborative effort between the professional and the client, a reasonable fee will be affected also by how much responsibility the client is willing to take for the implementation of the agreed approach.
It may be a stretch to call these four ques¬tions “magic words,” but they do help to guide the professional and client in a mutually satisfac¬tory collaborative effort to close the sale.
* * *
E. MICHAEL SHAYS CMC (ems@emsnetwork.com) is President of EMS Network, International, an association of senior consultants helping clients faced with conflict, transition, stagnation, and management dilemmas.
Use the Magic Words in Consultative Selling - To learn more about this author, visit Michael Shays's Website.
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Use the Magic Words in Consultative Selling
E. Michael Shays CMC
At some point in a sales meeting with a client, a professional is expected to offer some course of action. If he or she has listened carefully, she will likely be completely aligned with the client. However it is also likely that the client hasn’t revealed some inner motivations that influence the decision to use a professional advisor. Offering a course of action becomes a gamble: If you read the client correctly you get client agreement. If you missed something the client said, or worse, did not say, you and your course of action face being dismissed.
The object is to bring the client in as a partici¬pant in the design of the solution, to get his fin¬gerprints on the course to be followed. You do this with these magic words:
1. “If we could [suggested professional approach], would that help?”
These words avoid locking the professional into an approach. The client’s response helps you understand what the client thinks is needed and in fact may help the client understand his own needs more clearly. If the suggested approach is not going to be helpful in the eyes of the client, there is now time and space to learn more about the need and to develop the appropriate solu¬tion, to negotiate an assignment, and to ob¬tain the client’s buy-in.
If the suggested approach is on target you are on your way to the next level of magic words. Since the best solution is a result of the professional and client working together to solve a problem, the best place to start this collaboration is with the next question:
2. “Let’s see how we might do that.”
This invites the client to work with you to structure an implementation of the approach that is satisfactory to the client and gets the client that much more involved in the sales process, which is a win-win outcome for both client and professional. The client is that much surer of getting what he needs, and you not only get a better understanding of the client’s expectations, but also brings the client closer to committing to a close.
The next question is just as important:
3. “Just what would be the benefits if we took this approach?”
The answer to this question will help you understand the value the client places on the solution under discussion and gets your client that much closer to agreeing to an engagement. The answer helps the client to understand the results she will have to reach. The answer also begins to give the professional a basis for a fair fee. This leads naturally to the next question:
4. “Let’s see if we can structure something that makes economic sense.”
At this point you may need to go off-line to develop a fee structure, but if you have sufficient experience in the environment and the approach agreed upon, this too could be developed collaboratively with the client. Since the best consulting is a collaborative effort between the professional and the client, a reasonable fee will be affected also by how much responsibility the client is willing to take for the implementation of the agreed approach.
It may be a stretch to call these four ques¬tions “magic words,” but they do help to guide the professional and client in a mutually satisfac¬tory collaborative effort to close the sale.
* * *
E. MICHAEL SHAYS CMC (ems@emsnetwork.com) is President of EMS Network, International, an association of senior consultants helping clients faced with conflict, transition, stagnation, and management dilemmas.
Use the Magic Words in Consultative Selling - To learn more about this author, visit Michael Shays's Website.
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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