Cracking The Secret Code: Don't Ask, Teach

Most sales trainers centred on one core teaching: you must understand customers' needs and sell them solutions to their needs.

Many sales training in Singapore and Asia teach people to ask better questions, like probing questions, financial questions, hypothetical questions, follow-up questions and open-ended questions so as to get the sale.

The idea is that if we just dig deep enough, we will find gold. This sounds very good, but does it work in real life? Do people buy based on needs?

What if customers don't know what they need? Like before Apple launched iPad in 2010, you cannot get anywhere if you ask questions on what type of tablet they need.

To me, the customer's single greatest need is to figure out exactly what they need.

So a better sales technique is to tell customers what they need.

Sales champions win not by understanding their customers' needs but by knowing customers' needs better than the customers themselves. So such sales champions (called Sales Challengers), instead of asking people questions, teach people instead.

This is because customers really want to be taught in the first place. Even if they know what they want, they may not know the way forward: how to anticipate future needs. This is where you as the sales expert comes in. You know your product and the future needs of your product better than anyone, that's why you must teach.

In short, the more you teach, the more the customer knows. The more the customer knows, the greater will be his needs. And that's a better way to sell than asking questions. To know more about the new Challenger Sale Method, come for this course on 6 March 2015 Friday 9 am to 12.30 pm. Details are here at Asia Trainers. Related articles on sales:

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