Sales Training: How To Better Understand Your Prospect

Sales Training Tips: How To Better Understand Your Prospect in Stamford CT

Connecticut Sales TrainingIt’s obvious that good salesperson should always know as much as possible about their product before trying to sell it. However, it’s also important to know and understand who your prospect is. What you need to know about your prospect is, to some extent, dependent on your product, but there are some questions that generally apply to all salespeople, their products and prospects.

Sales Training Tips: Better Understanding Your Prospect in Stamford CT

What you need to know about your prospect:

  • 1. What problem will the product solve for the prospect?
  • 2. What does the prospect need? What does the prospect want?
  • 3. What things does the prospect do for fun? What is their family like?
  • 4. What is the prospect’s name? How is it pronounced? What are their titles within their company and otherwise?
  • 5. Is your prospect in a qualified position that they can buy your product?
  • 6. When is the best day and time to go to ensure you see your prospect?

As a salesperson, you should not only know your prospect’s needs, but anticipate answers to their questions. For example, in terms of competition, it’s good to know the difference in savings or profits the prospect can get by using your product instead of theirs. You should also find out what equipment is best for this prospect. While doing a sales training for a firm in Hartford, CT that sold specialty equipment for laundry facilities, it was essential for the reps to know their prospect. Since many of the the equipment manufactures sold products that appeared similar, their team was having a hard time overcoming the lower quotes presented by the competition. When the sales team started to address the prospects concerns about environmental compliance, guarantees on speed of service, and other issues, a slightly higher price became a minimal issue. As they spent more time on relationship-building and getting to know the actual person, the price became even less of a concern.

In addition, it is vital to write down everything you can about the prospect. All of it may come in handy, and it’s highly unlikely that you’ll remember everything. You will be able to use these facts in your sales talk in order to talk up your product in a way that is meaningful to them, as well as create a genuine rapport with the prospect. It will also allow other reps that service the client in the future to get up to speed much more quickly.

The foundation for every sale is knowing that the prospect needs your product and can benefit by buying it. If you can’t figure out why your product will benefit the prospect, you have no business being there. Morally, you shouldn’t try to sell anything to someone who doesn’t need it.

Finding out what your prospect needs and talking to them about it sets you up for success. If you fail to do so, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get the sale.