Here's an exercise we work on in training seminars. It lays the foundation for everything else we do.

1. Identify all the different levels and types of buyers and influencers for what you sell. Describe them by title and/or function. For example, depending on the organization, you might have an Advertising Director as the buyer. In smaller companies it could be an Office Manager, or maybe even the President.

2. Taking each of these types of people, identify how they're typically evaluated in their job. A Purchasing Manager is evaluated differently than a sales manager-the former on conservation, while the latter on production. Why should we think about this? We all have a desire to survive-at the very least-in our jobs, and most of us want to

Bzzzzz. Wrong, if you answered with,

• “Uhhh . . .”

• Any description of your product or service.

You get an “Incomplete” if you answered,

• “Because we have great service.”

• “We have the best quality.”

This might seem rather basic to some of you, but if you quit reading I promise you're cheating yourself. Unless you have an inside-and-out understanding of all the possible reasons people buy from you, you're likely inviting objections. That's because you're probably selling what you want to sell, or talking about what the company's marketing department tells you are “benefits.” People buy for their reasons, not yours. Your goal on calls is to learn, remind them of, and understand their reasons for being interested in you, and ultimately buying.

An Example

Let's look at an example. A copy machine salesperson calls a smaller company, hoping to sell a copier. He speaks with the Office Manager who typically makes decisions like this one. After asking a few basic qualifying questions he learns the office has four people in it, and they now have a big old monster of a copy machine that has been in the office for about eight years.

Thinking he has a hot prospect, the rep launches into a pitch about the latest techno-copier that does everything but write the documents for you. He overwhelms the listener with a point-by-point description of each of the “benefits”-or what he thinks are benefits (they indeed are, to some people).

The prospect says, “What we have is working just fine now.”

He retorts with some rendition of the “feel-felt-found” technique and rams into a brick wall. He writes this one off, and moves to the next. Same pitch, same result.

What Went Wrong?

So is the rep not skilled at closing? How about overcoming objections? Neither. You could make a case for him not being a skilled questioner, but that might not be fair. The fact is, he doesn't have a clear understanding of why people buy from him-from their perspective, not his.

You see, in this case, the Office Manager was a technophobe. She just traded in her IBM Selectric for a computer for gosh sakes! And, she is paying $300 per year, plus a per copy charge for a maintenance contract on her current dinosaur copier-about half of what a new, smaller, more reliable machine would cost to buy!

And that's not all. The prospect was really quite interested in the fact that the machine the rep was pitching could do enlargement and reduction. Her's couldn't, and she had to personally go down to the Quick Copy to have them done, and it was a tremendous hassle. But, the rep had already mentioned so many other “benefits” that were actually perceived negatives to the prospect, that she didn't think it would be worth it to talk about that one feature. However, in isolation, it could have sold her.

Even if you think you have a clue about why people buy from you, do the following exercise. And do it often, since situations change regularly.

Here's an exercise we work on in training seminars. It lays the foundation for everything else we do.

1. Identify all the different levels and types of buyers and influencers for what you sell. Describe them by title and/or function. For example, depending on the organization, you might have an Advertising Director as the buyer. In smaller companies it could be an Office Manager, or maybe even the President.

2. Taking each of these types of people, identify how they're typically evaluated in their job. A Purchasing Manager is evaluated differently than a sales manager-the former on conservation, while the latter on production. Why should we think about this? We all have a desire to survive-at the very least-in our jobs, and most of us want to t

An Example

Let's look at an example. A copy machine salesperson calls a smaller company, hoping to sell a copier. He speaks with the Office Manager who typically makes decisions like this one. After asking a few basic qualifying questions he learns the office has four people in it, and they now have a big old monster of a copy machine that has been in the office for about eight years.

Thinking he has a hot prospect, the rep launches into a pitch about the latest techno-copier that does everything but write the documents for you. He overwhelms the listener with a point-by-point description of each of the “benefits”-or what he thinks are benefits (they indeed are, to some people).

The prospect says, “What we have is working just fine now.”

He retorts with some rendition of the “feel-felt-found” technique and rams into a brick wall. He writes this one off, and moves to the next. Same pitch, same result.

What Went Wrong?

So is the rep not skilled at closing? How about overcoming objections? Neither. You could make a case for him not being a skilled questioner, but that might not be fair. The fact is, he doesn't have a clear understanding of why people buy from him-from their perspective, not his.

You see, in this case, the Office Manager was a technophobe. She just traded in her IBM Selectric for a computer for gosh sakes! And, she is paying $300 per year, plus a per copy charge for a maintenance contract on her current dinosaur copier-about half of what a new, smaller, more reliable machine would cost to buy!

And that's not all. The prospect was really quite interested in the fact that the machine the rep was pitching could do enlargement and reduction. Her's couldn't, and she had to personally go down to the Quick Copy to have them done, and it was a tremendous hassle. But, the rep had already mentioned so many other “benefits” that were actually perceived negatives to the prospect, that she didn't think it would be worth it to talk about that one feature. However, in isolation, it could have sold her.

Even if you think you have a clue about why people buy from you, do the following exercise. And do it often, since situations change regularly.

Here's an exercise we work on in training seminars. It lays the foundation for everything else we do.

1. Identify all the different levels and types of buyers and influencers for what you sell. Describe them by title and/or function. For example, depending on the organization, you might have an Advertising Director as the buyer. In smaller companies it could be an Office Manager, or maybe even the President.

2. Taking each of these types of people, identify how they're typically evaluated in their job. A Purchasing Manager is evaluated differently than a sales manager-the former on conservation, while the latter on production. Why should we think about this? We all have a desire to survive-at the very least-in our jobs, and most of us want to

The prospect says, “What we have is working just fine now.”

He retorts with some rendition of the “feel-felt-found” technique and rams into a brick wall. He writes this one off, and moves to the next. Same pitch, same result.

What Went Wrong?

So is the rep not skilled at closing? How about overcoming objections? Neither. You could make a case for him not being a skilled questioner, but that might not be fair. The fact is, he doesn't have a clear understanding of why people buy from him-from their perspective, not his.

You see, in this case, the Office Manager was a technophobe. She just traded in her IBM Selectric for a computer for gosh sakes! And, she is paying $300 per year, plus a per copy charge for a maintenance contract on her current dinosaur copier-about half of what a new, smaller, more reliable machine would cost to buy!

And that's not all. The prospect was really quite interested in the fact that the machine the rep was pitching could do enlargement and reduction. Her's couldn't, and she had to personally go down to the Quick Copy to have them done, and it was a tremendous hassle. But, the rep had already mentioned so many other “benefits” that were actually perceived negatives to the prospect, that she didn't think it would be worth it to talk about that one feature. However, in isolation, it could have sold her.

Even if you think you have a clue about why people buy from you, do the following exercise. And do it often, since situations change regularly.

Here's an exercise we work on in training seminars. It lays the foundation for everything else we do.

1. Identify all the different levels and types of buyers and influencers for what you sell. Describe them by title and/or function. For example, depending on the organization, you might have an Advertising Director as the buyer. In smaller companies it could be an Office Manager, or maybe even the President.

2. Taking each of these types of people, identify how they're typically evaluated in their job. A Purchasing Manager is evaluated differently than a sales manager-the former on conservation, while the latter on production. Why should we think about this? We all have a desire to survive-at the very least-in our jobs, and most of us want to

And that's not all. The prospect was really quite interested in the fact that the machine the rep was pitching could do enlargement and reduction. Her's couldn't, and she had to personally go down to the Quick Copy to have them done, and it was a tremendous hassle. But, the rep had already mentioned so many other “benefits” that were actually perceived negatives to the prospect, that she didn't think it would be worth it to talk about that one feature. However, in isolation, it could have sold her.

Even if you think you have a clue about why people buy from you, do the following exercise. And do it often, since situations change regularly.

Here's an exercise we work on in training seminars. It lays the foundation for everything else we do.

1. Identify all the different levels and types of buyers and influencers for what you sell. Describe them by title and/or function. For example, depending on the organization, you might have an Advertising Director as the buyer. In smaller companies it could be an Office Manager, or maybe even the President.

2. Taking each of these types of people, identify how they're typically evaluated in their job. A Purchasing Manager is evaluated differently than a sales manager-the former on conservation, while the latter on production. Why should we think about this? We all have a desire to survive-at the very least-in our jobs, and most of us want to

Here's an exercise we work on in training seminars. It lays the foundation for everything else we do.

1. Identify all the different levels and types of buyers and influencers for what you sell. Describe them by title and/or function. For example, depending on the organization, you might have an Advertising Director as the buyer. In smaller companies it could be an Office Manager, or maybe even the President.

2. Taking each of these types of people, identify how they're typically evaluated in their job. A Purchasing Manager is evaluated differently than a sales manager-the former on conservation, while the latter on production. Why should we think about this? We all have a desire to survive-at the very least-in our jobs, and most of us want to thrive. Knowing how someone is measured in their environment provides insight to what makes them tick.

3. Regarding your types of product/service, what do they want and need most? Be as specific as possible. Saying, “They want good quality,” doesn't cut it. If you can't see, feel, hear, touch, or taste it, how can you describe it? Good quality manifests itself in the form of “A machine that requires virtually no servicing other than routine maintenance.”

4. Conversely, what do they want to avoid? Again, be specific, descriptive. Don't say “poor service.” Better: “They hate having to wait three hours to get an answer to a basic technical question.”

Answering these questions is just a start. After you've compiled your list, then you use the answers to create questions to determine if, indeed, these possible benefits truly are benefits.