Controlling the Sales Interview

During a typical sales call, there is a “tug of war” going on – a tug of war to see who can get the most information.

Your job, as a sales professional, is to get as much information as possible when you are qualifying an opportunity.  Yet your prospective client feels his job is to do the same when he is exploring his alternatives, all the while taking care not to expose any weakness that might put him at a disadvantage. The salesperson must have superior questioning skills in order to win the tug of war.

The person who is asking the questions is in control of the direction of the conversation.  That should be you.

On a typical sales call, your prospect has a number of questions to ask you to determine if he might want to do business with you.  As you have undoubtedly experienced, prospects are quite skillful at turning salespeople into “unpaid consultants.”  In order to achieve your objective of being a great investigator and obtaining lots of information, try a tactic called rewarding and refocusing.  It enables you to maintain control of the conversation by answering the prospect’s question (or respond to a statement) with a question of your own.

A reward functions as a transition from the prospect’s question to yours, such as, “That’s a good question” or “I’m glad you asked me that.”  The reward is then followed by a question (refocus) that relates to the prospect’s question.  The intent is to keep the prospect talking until you can obtain enough information to deal with the issue effectively.  It might sound like this:

Prospect:       “How would you solve a problem like this?”

Salesperson:  “That’s a good question. What have you

tried so far?”

Prospect:        “Well, we’ve …”

Salesperson:   “I see.  And how has that worked out for

you?”

or

Prospect:       “Tell me about your training program.”

Salesperson:  “Be happy to.  But what areas are the most

critical for you to address with training?”

Prospect:        “Prospecting is a real problem for us.”

Salesperson:   “Not unusual.  Can you tell me a little more

about that?”

A word of clarification is necessary here. This tactic is not designed to be deceptive or manipulative.  In fact, sometimes a short answer followed by a question is quite appropriate.  “We’ve found that _____works quite well.  What have you tried?”

Tip:  You can’t put your foot in your mouth if it’s closed.  Keep your prospect talking at least 70% of the time.

Self-Study Assignment:  Make up a short list of rewards (“I see”… “Okay”… “That’s interesting”…etc.) that you would be comfortable using.  Practice rewarding & refocusing in non-threatening situations until you are comfortable with the concept.  A word of caution – don’t over use this tactic.  It’s not a game, just a conversation.