Decide which of the following people loves you the most: your spouse, your mother, or a significant other. Then, the next time you see her, tell her within a few minutes: "You need to do this. You also need to do that. And finally, you need to do this third thing". To ensure you really drive the point home, make sure to point your finger at her when telling her what she really needs to do. I wonder how long it will take before (s)he tells you what YOU need to do, and I am sure it will not be in such polite language.

What I find fascinating, is that this is the most common behavior I have seen with sales people when talking to their prospects. Let me see if you can relate. How often have you heard a sales rep say: "You need to have a look at my product". If the person that loves you the most won't take this kind of talk, why do you think your prospect who knows very little if anything about you would?

There are two classes of sales people:
The first category will:

• Offer you opinions.
• Present all the features of his product with the hope that one or more would stick (like spaghetti when cooked).
• Assume he knows what your situation is and make statements to that effect.
• Make presentations and standard demos at the first call.

You hear this behavior often labeled as "show up and throw up" or "spray and pray". Unfortunately, the buyer's opinion of the sales person resides somewhere between swimming among sharks and swallowing flaming swords. In simple terms, they don't trust these opinions.

The second category will:

• Ask questions to understand the prospect situation.
• Ask questions about how they do business today and why they want to change.
• Ask questions to identify a problem to solve, a need to satisfy, or a goal to achieve with a bias towards his offering.
• Identify the cost of doing business the way the prospect is doing it today.
• Withhold his opinions and judgments to fully understand from the prospect's lips what the situation is really about.

In this instance, through the conversation that these questions initiate, the seller will be able to align with the buyer. Doing so will allow a more meaningful, competent, and sincere conversation that will benefit both parties.

How to develop a vision in the mind of your prospect with a bias towards your offering
Marketing is responsible for delivering the messages, content, and collateral sales people use in their interactions with customers. One of the marketing groups, product marketing, is very product focused and fairly technical in the way it describes your offering. Most "sales training" is really product training delivered by the product (marketing) managers. Does it come as a great surprise then if the first words out of sales people's mouths are feature function descriptions of what they sell? An easy test is to look at your web site and your marketing collateral and evaluate if it includes phrases such as: fully integrated, cutting edge, leading provider, and state of the art, or words like seamless, fastest robust, elegant, and dynamic. If they do, are you presenting self-serving opinions about your products? Can a prospect understand how to use your product to help her address her needs? Can she relate her situation with others that may face similar challenges? How different are your descriptions compared to your competitors?

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