The Gatekeeper & Responding to Customer Questions When Selling
The Gatekeeper
The gatekeeper is anyone who stands between you and the relevant contact; this could be a receptionist, a secretary, a personal assistant, or another team member. Their job will be (in most cases) to stop time-wasters and unwanted salespeople getting through and wasting the contact’s time.
The Managing Director of a company will not want to take 100 calls a day from unknown people; a gatekeeper will try to ensure only the required phone calls go through.
“gatekeeper will try to ensure only required calls go through”
When you reach a gatekeeper, ask briefly for your contact: “Good Morning, John Smith please.” They may ask your name, and which company you are calling from. If they are good they will ask if the call is expected or what it is regarding.
Tip: By sending an email or letter (link: mail-shot) to the contact, in which you say “I will call you shortly to…” then you can legitimately say that the call is expected. This greatly increases your chances of being directed through.
Think of the gatekeeper as a potential ally, respect them. If they say the contact is busy, ask when they think the best time to call is. Then when you call back, you can say “…you recommended I call back today…”
If you try and trick a gatekeeper, you risk losing a link to the contact, and you may also start the call to the contact with a disadvantage.
Remember that the gatekeeper will also be screening your competitor’s calls!
Being Consultative
Contrary to the belief of many sales people, the best way to make sales is not to talk about how wonderful a product is. Traditionally, sales people will go on about how good their product is, and how amazing its features are. However, the key to phone sales (and all sales in general) is to ask the potential cus tomer what they want! In other words: Do not make the customer fit the product; let the product fit the customer.
“Do not make the customer fit the product; let the product fit the customer”
The three main types of selling are:
Product Selling – This is where the salesperson talks about the product, talks about features, talks about benefits. Most cus tomers will reject the sales push nature of product selling.
Product Purpose Selling – This is where a salespers on will look at basic customer needs, but will rapidly focus on selling and pushing the product.
Consultative Selling – This is where the salesperson focuses on the client/customer. They focus on a solution for the client, not the product.
Consultative selling focuses on the customer, their requirements and needs. It is creating and selling a solution using your product, not selling the product itself.
Instead of telling them what you have, let them tell you (through questions or prompts) their requirements and needs, then match what you have to what they want.
This avoids wasting time on product pushes, and instead shows the customer that you are willing to focus on their buying needs, not your selling needs.
Questions and Feedback
Many salespeople traditionally try to ask questions that make a client answer yes:
“Would you like to save money?” “Do you want a quality product?”
These questions may get a ‘yes’ answer, but they are ineffective because they completely fail to answer any of the client’s needs.
A key part of consultative selling is asking questions that allow the customer to tell you what they want. How can you know that your product is what the customer wants if you don’t ask?
“The most effective questions are the ‘why’ and ‘what’ questions”
The most effective questions are the “why” and “what” questions. These invite the client to explain what it is they want, and why they want (or do not want) the product. They allow you to tailor your product descriptions and discussions to the needs of the client.
Some sales people fear that allowing customers to answer questions will expose the weaknesses in a product. This is occasionally true, but it also allows you to discover other features the customer wants that more than make up for the weakness.
A client asks: “Why should I buy this product from you?”
Instead of reading a list of features, ask; “We have many significant advantages over similar products, so I can centre on the areas relevant to you, can I ask a few questions?”
Then ask what they need or are looking for from the product, that way you can tailor your responses without making an obvious sales push that may damage your chances of succeeding.
Potential customers will not want to buy a generic solution; they want a product that is right for them.
By asking questions, you can tailor your product into a solution for them, something that solves their needs. Only by asking questions can you truly become a consultative seller.
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