Can You Find The Buying Issue?

There’s a point of debate about Promotional Consultant Today’s Feature Friday. One common trait to both great debaters and great salespeople is their ability to find this primary issue and to highlight it in such a way that they win the debate or the sale. Read this excerpt from the April issue of Promotional Consultant, and learn how to spot and sell to the PBI (primary buying issue).

Begin comprehensively. This means asking questions–lots and lots of questions. Too many salespeople start out with a handful of questions and then move directly to the brochure barf–a long list of features and benefits to attempt to win the sale. Instead, focus on questioning comprehensively. The more you hear the buyer’s issues and needs, the more likely it is that the PBI is among them. Many sales are lost because the salesperson never even hears the buyer’s PBI.

Start narrowing. Hopefully you’re a good note-taker. Now it’s time to start narrowing the conversation by asking questions about impact (the effect of the buying issues) and the priorities (what’s more important). Questions such as, “How does this affect the end user?” “How does this affect you?” “Of these issues, what’s most important to you (or the ownership, or the users, etc.)?”

Solve for the PBI or leave. Once you determine the PBI, you need to measure your solution against it. Can you, in fact, fix the customer’s problem? If you can’t, it’s probably time to find a new customer—otherwise you’ll be pushing a rope uphill, and that’s never successful.

To read the complete article, “Can You Find The Buying Issue?,” refer to the April issue of Promotional Consultant digital magazine, delivered to your inbox next Monday.

Source: Troy Harrison is president of SalesForce Solutions and has been a top salesperson and sales manager for more than 15 years. During that time he has turned around territories and entire sales forces. While working for a national managed services provider, he turned one of the company’s worst sales forces into a two-time consecutive national champion, with six President’s Club salesperson awards and two national champion sales manager awards.