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164 Marketing: the Basics
interest. Throughout the sales call it is vital you ask the client for permission to continue. It is similar to tacking a hallway carpet. If you just drop a carpet down in a hallway and randomly tack here and there what you will have is a carpet that is a mass of waves, generally something that looks a right mess. The proper way to end up with a nice, flat, well-laid carpet is to start tacking down one end and move methodically to the other. A good sales call is similar. You want the customer to feel that each step of the call is a next logical step. They won’t feel manipulated but are rather in full agreement with the salesperson. After the customer has agreed that why you are there is relevant for them, you move to the next phase. If the customer doesn’t agree that what you are there to discuss is for them, you then question and find out why. You will often find that it is just a misunderstanding; once you clear that up you may proceed but sometimes you may find that you are meeting with the wrong person. In that case you ask them who is the right person, thank them for their time and head off to find the right person, thankful that you have not wasted their time any more and more fundamentally that you have not wasted any more of your most precious resource – your sales time! We call this permission marketing.
At this point many salespeople would launch into their sales pitch. Outstanding salespeople realize that you should next move into the heart of the sales call, questioning the customer about their needs. This will often take up the majority of the time of the sales call. During this phase the salesperson asks the customer about how they are solving the problem that he/she wants to address with their product today. This interested probing will allow the salesperson to understand the context of the customer and what is important to them. This will go on for 15, 20, 30 minutes or more depending on the customer and the topic. At the end of the questioning stage the salesperson will then summarize what they have learned. This will encourage the customer that you have actually listened (an unusual thing for most of us and rather enjoyable) and then you check back with them that you have accurately reflected your discussion. A good question to ask is: did I get your priorities right? This gives the customer the chance to add anything that they think you have missed and also implicitly asks permission to then move to the next
































































































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