There are many ways to make a presentation or exhibition of products or services to a customer. Some serve others perhaps not so much, however the advisory sale has a great probability of helping the seller to close his sales.
It is common to see salesmen or sellers approaching a client putting themselves in front of their needs and "forcing" a sale, which will be more difficult for them.
This situation has warranted the search for other more appropriate ways to achieve sales closings taking advantage of what the customer needs. In theory this way is the easiest to achieve our goals.
By consultative sale we are going to understand the process of asking direct and constructive questions, with which a salesman is understanding his client in a better way and by that means offer and then close.
When we talk about direct questions we are referring to those questions that are determining to locate the customer's need. They are not banal, or warm-up questions or questions asked to ask them.
A direct question has to do with what we are offering and what the client wants to obtain.
In the case of constructive questions, we are going to visualize them as those that help to finalize the closing of sales, doing a filter job, since they discard options that are not correct.
Constructive questions help if at the end of a string of several of them the seller was clear about the customer's need.
We will discuss two examples of what we have described so far.
Example No. 1
Incorrect situation:
A customer comes to a store to find a wallet. The sales staff places all the wallets on the counter and leaves their choice to the customer. If the seller is lucky, the customer will take one that he saw there and liked. However that is not the correct way to make the sale.
Correct situation:
The customer enters the store, requests to see the wallets and the seller uses the advisory sale technique, as follows:
Question No. 1
Is the wallet for you or for someone else? This question places you on the user of this article and, based on the client's response, continues with the other questions.
Question No. 2
How do you like the wallet: leather, leather or other material?
Question No. 3
Which color do you like best: black, blue, brown or gray?
Question No. 4
Do you like it with many or few compartments?
With these four questions, the seller can better filter what he is going to offer and then close his sale. In case the client gave him valuable information about his tastes, preferences and expectations.
A seller using this technique can praise the customer by signaling their good taste and directly show them the wallets that meet the characteristics that the customer pointed out to them. Needless to say, it will not show you wallets that do not meet the selection conditions that the customer will use to buy.
Example No. 2:
Incorrect situation:
A client enters a Dental Office. The dentist takes care of him and offers him a treatment that he uses a lot since he is an expert in it.
Correct situation:
The dentist asks you the following questions:
- Why do you want to have this treatment? (This question is vital. The client may need it for aesthetics, for health reasons, for work reasons, etc.)
- What do you expect at the end of this treatment?
- Have you already seen it done in someone else?
- Do you know the advantages and disadvantages of doing it?
At the end of this interrogation, the Dentist will be clear on how much the client knows about the treatment and in this way he will be able to correct what is not right and make a presentation of the treatment that he recommends. For that, you already have valuable information about the client and his expectations.
As we have seen in these two cases, the appropriate way to approach a client is to use questions that help filter information and that facilitate the seller to make a more effective sales closing.
General conclusions:
1.- The question is the most important weapon that every seller must use.
2.- We should never take for granted what the client wants. We must investigate it previously.
3.- We never offer anything without being clear about what the client has in his “mind”.
4.- Filter through questions and help the client to better visualize his need.
The technique of consultative selling is as its word indicates, asking the customer what he expects, wants and needs; once such information is obtained, proceed to the presentation of the product or service and look for a closing of sales according to what the client has told us.
This closing of sales tends to make the seller's work easier since he can take advantage of the questions to confirm to the customer that this product or service is what he is looking for.
