Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/825042
May/June 2017 27 Changing the Way You Cook since 1990 800.988.8103 360.650.1111 woodstone-corp.com STONE HEARTH & SPECIALTY Commercial Cooking Equipment Discover why OVER 14,000 OVENS, rotisseries, charbroilers, tandoors, and planchas have been SOLD IN 80+ COUNTRIES worldwide. Made in the USA. What can you do to increase the per- centage that your customer talks during a call? Ask more open-ended questions. What about asking more probing ques- tions? Increasing the time your customer talks, can help you better understand their real challenges or needs. Getting your cus- tomers to talk more, also signals that you're interested in their business. Do you think you can do less talking on your next sales call? Question No. 3 How much note-taking do you do on your sales calls? Taking notes on a sales call has two signifi cant benefi ts to a sales pro- fessional. The fi rst and most obvious benefi t to taking notes on a sales call is that it provides you with a record of what you discussed and what your customer or prospect most wants to change or accomplish. Moreover, taking notes in front of a customer also helps communicate non-verbally your interest in them and their business, and affi rms the importance of what they've said to you. How important do you make your customer and their comments feel? What can you do to take more notes during your next sales call? Question No. 4 Our fourth and fi nal question to measure your true customer focus is to evaluate how you follow up after a sales call. Do you do any type of customer-focused follow-up after a sales call? Most experienced sales pros follow up after a sales call, but usually by only sending out more product or materials that talk about how great their company and products or services are. How customer-focused is it to send out materials that only talk about you and your stuff? What can you do after a sales call to follow-up with materials or literature that can help your customer or prospect and their challenges? Do you have any access to industry or technical application articles or "white papers" that can provide value and additional insights to your customer? Do you think you might appear more customer-focused when compared to your competitors if you sent an article that centered on their needs or challenges instead of a full-color brochure on your latest products? Evaluate your available lit- erature and online downloads. How many of these documents only talk about your company and products or services? How many discuss or provide technical, or application data or insights? There are always times when a product or company-focused document will be of value to your customer. As with Question No. 2, evaluating what percentage of your calls you talk versus listen, do you think doing the same type of evaluation for your literature and electronic attachments might help you deter- mine how customer's perceive your value? I doubt a customer will consider you very customer-focused if all of your literature and attachments only talk about your com- pany and your offerings. What can you do to increase the customer focus of any of the literature you distribute? All experienced sales professionals brag about how customer-focused they are, but when evaluated against these four ques- tions or tests, many often fall short in their actions. Rarely, do their talk or supporting documents validate or confi rm a real inter- est in doing anything other than selling stuff to their customers. We know you're good. The question is, "Are you ready to be customer-focused enough to listen and help them solve their problems?" About the Author Jim Pancero has been directly involved in business-to-busi- ness selling for more than 35 years, fi rst as a top salesper- son at IBM before starting his own training and consulting company. He works with experienced business salespeople, their frontline sales managers, and the owner/executive in charge of leading the sales force. To learn more (and see a variety of free sales and sales management videos), visit his website at pancero.com. How customer-focused is it to send out materials that only talk about you and your stuff? What can you do after a sales call to follow-up with materials or literature that can help your customer or prospect and their challenges?