Create a Need: It’s All in the Questioning!!!

Everyone knows that the first step towards any sale is identifying a need. The key question, of course, is how to do that.

Simply put, there are 2 types of needs:

• Needs your customer knows they have
• Needs your customer does NOT know they have

Needs your Customer Knows They Have

Let’s first look at a need your customer knows he has.

You: How happy are you with xyz?

Customer: When faced with this question, the customer is either happy (and should be) or unhappy! Easy enough.

The problem is most customers don’t know all their needs. They may say they are happy … but it’s because they don’t know other options exist out there (so … they don’t know what they don’t know).

Needs your Customer does NOT Know They Have

Relying on your customer to know all their needs may mean missing many opportunities. I am certain the needs they “don’t know” outnumber the needs “they know” so it is our job to ask the right questions.

Now, let’s re-write a dozen different questions in a way that will help your customer realize needs they may not know they have.

These questions have been written to match different areas of business.

• Finance: When was the last tax savings discussion your investment advisor had with you?
• Operations: What was the last productivity improvement initiative you did on your assembly line? What % savings did you see?
• Operations: How does your current provider help ensure that the products you buy from them are used correctly and successfully?
• Technology: What is your downtime rating? What are you doing to improve it?
• Sales Management: How well can you gauge and measure the performance of your sales team?
• Sales Training: What do you think your best salesperson does well that makes him/her successful? What gaps do the others on your sales team have in comparison?
• Marketing: Which recent marketing investments generated real quotes and sales for your company? How did you measure that?
• eMarketing: How are you measuring your Google ranking? What is your team/service provider doing to increase it?
• Administration: What reports do you get that show you how to better buy your office supplies?
• Service: What was the last creative idea your supplier came to you with to help save you time and/or money or improve their service to you?

While nobody knows for sure if these questions will trigger a need, they will certainly, at a minimum, create deeper and more exploratory dialogue.

NOTE: When developing these questions, remember, that the question(s) must be framed to help uncover/ lead them to your difference, your unique offering.

Of course, it is easier and safer to ask “are you happy” or “what projects do you have going on” but, as this module explains, this approach can result in conversations ending too quickly, relying too heavily on your customer’s own assessment of their needs and missed opportunities.