Every day, salespeople deal with resistance because the sales process is an emotional one. I would like to help mitigate and make less of that resistance and possibly even make the whole sales process enjoyable! Here are a few actions you can adopt, make your own and work into your sales selling habits to help you turn your prospects resistance into a desire to purchase.

STEP ONE: Focus on what type of prospect you are dealing with. Is your prospect an executive? A business owner? A doctor? Dentist? Marketing director? Office manager? Assistant? Or even someone filtering the calls for the person you want to get to!

If you are a salesperson who deals with many different types of prospects then list out the different types of prospects you deal with and do the steps laid out in this article. If you only deal with one type of prospect than do the steps laid out for that one type of prospect.

STEP TWO:  Assume the viewpoint of the prospect, this allows you to formulate your questions based on the prospects point of view. Then list out how the prospect feels and thinks based on their point of view. What are they experiencing? What problems are they facing? What might they need help with? What do they like? Not like?

STEP THREE:  Make the initial contact with the prospect, either in person or by phone. You may run into a situation where you have a filtering mechanism, meaning a receptionist or assistant or office manager that filters the calls for the doctor or executive or the prospect you are trying to get to. You can even have a situation where you never get to talk to your prospect but instead must communicate to a secondary person, such as an assistant or office manager.

Realize there can be resistance to sales people because of the poor quality of communication that has come to them from other sales people.

STEP FOUR: Develop interest. The key in any of the above circumstances is to build enough understanding and affinity to get past the “filter mechanism” and be sent to the decision maker. You want the person you are talking with to send you to the decision maker so you can begin the sales process on the person who can make the decision. Once you get to the decision maker, you must now develop interest with him or her.

In order to gain agreement, which is crucial to getting closer to the decision maker and the sale is to ask your questions in a way that causes agreement versus telling them that they should be interested in what you are selling or being forceful about it. Checking with the prospect as you go through your pitch and ask something like, “is this something you think you might be interested in?” Granting importance to your prospects and asking them for agreement during your conversation rather than forcing your opinions on them will get you far.

DISCOVER INTEREST LEVEL:  Once you get to your decision maker, ask probing questions to help discover what is important to them and what is not. It is vital to acknowledge well and take control of the conversation. A great question to start out with is, “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?” Design questions to determine the interest level of the prospect. Probing Questions for this could be:

1. A general question is “What caused you to reach out to us today?” Or “How did you find out about us today?” If you have a promotional campaign you could ask, “Did you receive something in the mail from us?” or “Did you see us on the internet?” Something interested them. Find out what it was!

A big part of what can make you successful is having patience to not rush through to the close. Find out what they are interested in and gain agreement throughout the conversation. Encourage them to ask questions as it will give you valuable insight on what they think about your products. Acknowledge a prospect when they ask a question with, “That’s a great question!” and “I’d love to explain that to you.”

The temptation of the sales person at this stage is to go into selling the features and benefits of their products or services. Don’t do this yet. Have the patience to really find out what they are thinking. What’s in their mind? What is the reason they called or came in? Take the time to probe.

To find out how long they have been looking at purchasing your product or service, ask questions like, “If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been experiencing this problem?” or “I’m just curious, how long have you been thinking about handling this problem?” can you help you get this information.

Another great question is “What was it that helped you decide to move forward now?” This one question will give you so much information. If they say, “We finally have the money to do it.” Now you know they did decide to move forward! Or “Oh no! We are not moving forward yet. We are just looking.” Then you know exactly where this prospect is at.

By asking these probing questions, you are getting all the information you need to “make the case”. Later in the sales process when you do get an objection to moving forward, you now have all the information you need to handle any objection that comes your way.

During this whole process, you are building trust, agreement and a willingness to communicate. If you prospect complains about the time it’s taking, say something like, “I understand, we do things a little bit differently. We really care about you and want to ensure you get the results you want.” Or “We really care enough to ensure at the end of this initial conversation that you know if we are the right company to service you or not.”

Create agreement, build trust and really communicate with the prospect. Remember, take the viewpoint of your prospect and base your questions on this. Selling is the art of getting someone else to talk to you. The art of sales is getting someone else to talk with you. Asking probing questions reveals the real situations going on with the prospect.

Lisa Terrenzi