Nothing happens until somebody sells something. To make sales happen, IMMS.com Key Sales Consultant Randy Schwantz has created a comprehensive series of 43 Producer Success Lessons. Used singly or in combination, these powerful tools can help your producers build their skills-and grow their sales.
I hate to wash my car. I hate it so much that I'm willing to pay extra for gasoline just to get a free car wash. On Sunday afternoons I usually head for the car wash down the street and have them do the dirty deed for me.
Just as I arrive, a guy usually asks me what kind of wash I want. He almost always has to explain the difference between a Super-Duper and Custom Wash (it's Armor All and Wheel Brite, I think). The guy dutifully explains and tries to get me to go for the more expensive one. 'The Wheel Brite cleans all that dirt off your wire wheels, which makes you car look much better,' he says. 'Armor All cleans and lubricates the leather surfaces, which keeps them from cracking in the hot Texas sun.'
What the guy at the car wash does is present features and benefits to me, then go for the close. This is presentation selling. Presentation selling is loaded with closing techniques, option questions ('Which do you prefer?') and explanations of features and benefits. The technique works very well on smaller items. I really have no interest in telling the guy at the car wash about my deepest car-cleaning problems, and he's too busy to care. In this scenario, presentation selling works great.
Tell Me About Your Problems
On some Sunday afternoons, my car is so clean that I just have to drive somewhere to show it off. One of the more interesting places to go on Sunday is the health food store. It has a snack bar, and Roy, the owner, can usually be found behind it, making tofu on whole-wheat sandwiches.
You can't shop at the health food store without asking some questions, and Roy has the answers. So I usually end up munching on sprouts and black beans while discussing some esoteric way to increase the efficiency of one or more of my bodily systems. Roy listens carefully, asks probing questions, then pronounces the solution.
'What you need,' Roy might say, 'is more high-fiber, sunbaked, all-natural, preservative-free vitamin A. Yessir, that'll cure you in no time.' Knowing even less about vitamins than I do about health food, I conclude that I ought to buy what Roy recommends.
This is an example of consultative selling. Roy is the expert. He has taken the time to get to know me. He listens closely to my problems, searches for the pain, then recommends a solution. Most of the time, it works great.
Tell Me Where It Hurts
Sometimes a problem is too complicated for a generalist to solve. In that case, it's the responsibility of the salesperson to call in an expert to help define a solution.
For example, if one of your clients has an extensive collection of fine art to insure, chances are that you won't be able to accurately recommend the best level of coverage. That's no problem if your agency has engaged the services of an expert in the fine arts market who's in a better position to advise your client in this area.
Calling an expert in to help you is an example of relationship selling. Relationship selling is defining the problem and providing an expert to recommend a solution. Even though you may lack some of the needed expert knowledge, you know where to get it. This is done all the time in the computer business: an account exec establishes an account, then turns it over to technical support.
I Can Relate
Most larger sales require either relationship selling strategies or consultative selling strategies. Presenting features and benefits to busy executives without really understanding their problems only wastes everyone's time.
So how do you position yourself to do consultative selling? Simple. Ask more questions. The more questions you ask, the better you understand the client's problems and the higher your level of rapport. The better you understand the client's problems, the more trust you're likely to engender.
What Do You Want?
'What do you really want from your broker?'
'What's important to you about ...?'
'What would be missing if you lacked ...?'
These are the most powerful questions you can ask. The answers you get will tell you what your clients want and how not having what they want would affect them.
Using these questions to delve into your clients' problems puts you into the realm of consultative selling. In presentation selling, you're selling a product. In consultative selling, you're helping to create solutions by discovering client desires.
Sometimes you'll recognize the problem, but you won't have the resources or knowledge to solve it. That's the time for relationship selling: Find someone you trust who's an expert in the area of the problem and who can help you design an appropriate solution.
The Doctor is In
Here's a medical analogy that clarifies relationship selling and consultative selling. Think of yourself as a doctor of selling.
Think of the way your doctor helps you. They ask you what's bothering you, and you say, 'It hurts right here.' The doctor then asks some clarifying questions, examines you, and offers a possible explanation. If the doctor is really good, they probably ask you a lot of questions. Some of them might have even seemed irrelevant. But you probably answered them anyway - after all, your doctor has your best interests in mind. Occasionally your doctor refers you to a specialist.
Can you apply this to your selling activities? Approach your next talk with a Commercial producer like a doctor. If the Commercial producer has pain somewhere, clarify exactly where it hurts. Ask pointed questions about the symptoms. Really probe.
If the problem you uncover is one you can solve, design an appropriate solution and offer it to the client. Most people get prescriptions filled when a doctor recommends it. (Can you imagine your doctor prescribing something you don't need or that will hurt you?)
If the problem is too complex for you to solve alone, call in an expert. Consult and discuss the issues with the expert until you're able to design an appropriate solution together.
EXERCISE
You can't prescribe the solution until you understand the illness. Recall your five most recent interviews. Did you approach them like a 'doctor of selling'? Did you prescribe before you completed your diagnosis?