Imagine a psychiatrist who comes into the exam room and starts talking about what she or he thinks you have before they ask any questions. They don’t allow you to speak. They just keep asking question after question to try to get to the root of the matter.
Crazy, right? Yet that’s what we do sometimes with our customers or potential customers. We just start talking or (worse yet) begin a pitch for a product or service before we ever see how things are going for the person we’re talking to.
In those cases we really aren’t the best representatives of our organizations. We’re just product pitchers—throwing out ideas, hoping that one will stick. That’s called the “spaghetti method”. Let’s throw it on the wall and see if it sticks.
Maybe some of you have a product or service that sells itself, but most of us need to do a little work by asking really good questions before we can fit a product or service to that individual.
The best salespeople (which is what we are in this situation) are the ones that do it like a psychiatrist. They let the person speak and sometimes even discover what they need on their own.
Think about it. The psychiatrist has had training so that that s/he will have an answer for what the person is facing. Of course, doctors have had a lot of training and have been interns— working with other doctors until they become proficient enough to do it on their own.
So mark today as the day that you start your “question asking” in a more formal way. Practice asking only the best questions so that you know what product or service will match the customer’s need.
