I find myself saying this very frequently, "the job of a salesperson is to help prospects make a decision". Too often as we are trying to get the prospect to make a decision we fall into the trap of making assumptions.
Assumptions are one of the root causes for many sales nightmares we can experience. Statements from prospects like, “everything seems to be in line, we just have to run it past our committee for a final okay but you have my vote”. Or the ever popular, “I am going to need a little time but I feel real confident about what you have shown us.” We hear they are buying but time may prove that was a hopeful assumption.
The result, we assume our contact is advocating or going to bat for us or we assume they are going to have enough horse power to push us through the committee or we assume they are telling us the truth. At the same time we may also assume that we have educated our contact to answer all of the questions that the committee might have. What if that one question we didn’t prepare our contact for is the question that the committee asks? This is Murphy’s Law, anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
But what if we did not leave our results up to chance?
Great salespeople ask all of the questions necessary to really understand the prospect’s intentions. Successful salespeople will not accept words that are unclear from their prospects. Avoid making assumptions, rather get clear, well-understood commitments from your prospects. Before you go on your next sales call think about being wary of your own assumptions.
As always let me know your thoughts, I would love to hear from you!
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Principle MP Solutions- For 25 years Rob has been driven by the passion he has to grow people and organizations. Rob has worked with hundreds of companies and is a sought-after speaker on sales, sales management, social media, strategy and goal setting. He brings his 18 years of Sandler Training experience to MP Solutions.
