NFIB

How to Read Your Customers
04/ 11/ 2002

Almost every experienced salesperson has had a prospective customer reject his or her proposal, only to find out that the proposal was rejected because it did not address something that the customer wanted. This all-too-frequent occurrence probably cannot be avoided 100 percent of the time, but as Jeffrey Moses shows in today's Workshop, you can at least minimize the chances of it occurring by "reading" your customers more accurately.

Several years ago, a California-based financial consulting company was contacted by the CEO of a successful real-estate firm. When setting up an appointment to meet with the consulting company's representatives, the CEO said only that he needed financial advice. Based on that, when the representatives met with the CEO, they whirled into a lengthy explanation of how their consultation services could help his company become more profitable. The CEO merely thanked them at the conclusion of their presentation and said that he would call if he chose to use their services. A week or so later, he called to inform them that he had decided to use the services of another company.

When the president of the consulting company was informed, he called the CEO, who told him: "What I really wanted from your company was information about how to make my own personal financial investments and investments for some of our key managers. Your people seemed focused on helping with the actual operations of our company -- but we're well equipped to handle that ourselves."

With that, the president of the consulting company realized that simply by asking what the CEO wanted before the initial meeting, he could have been directed to what the CEO's needs really were. In other words, the consulting company had not "read" the CEO accurately and as a result had lost his business.

The message inherent in this story can benefit anyone in sales -- no matter how large or small the product or service being sold, find out everything about your client and your client's needs before you begin to talk about what you can do for them. In the case of the consulting company, if the representatives had known beforehand what the CEO wanted, they could have emphasized that aspect of their services, rather than spending their entire presentation talking about something that wasn't to the point.

"Reading" your customer isn't limited only to types of sales that involve lengthy presentations or meetings. Retail sales also involve reading customers. It doesn't matter if the sale is of a $5,000 piece of jewelry, a $49.95 per month cell phone contract or a $25 printing job at a print shop. When you find out exactly what your customer wants, you've found out exactly what you need in order to make the sale.

Reading the customer involves asking questions and listening, as opposed to simply talking without listening. Numerous former Workshops have addressed this point (please see the former Workshop "The Key to Effective Communication -- Listening") but the principle is so vitally important for the success of any sales presentation that it cannot be repeated often enough. Listening is the only way to really key into your customers and often makes the difference between making or losing the sale.

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