Sales Questions According to Socrates
Applying the Four Keys of Socratic Questioning to Selling
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It’s a warm day as you cross the city square with all of the bustle and people on market day. As you go about your shopping a short ragged looking man is noted standing in the square talking to himself. This must happen quite often, as the crowd seems oblivious of him.

Later you turn to leave a shop and there he is asking you a question. He is very engaging and you find yourself drawn into the conversation which very quickly brings out how you see a current situation. Although he never really takes a position, you find yourself questioning how you see that situation. As you end your conversation and leave the square, the ideas his questions have planted are whirring around in your mind. You have just encountered the philosopher Socrates!

So who is this Greek from 450 BC and why does he have such an impact on us in the 21st century? ……more...

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"This series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy." - Adam Curtis An excellent primer on how Persuasion and Influance really work!

Engaging Customers
3 methods to get people talking

Step 1:

Have you ever wondered why some people turn sales people and others down? To get past this resistance we need to understand that selling is all about communications, not your product. In this segment we will start with the initial contact or how to “engage” the other person rather than creating resistance.

It doesn’t matter if we are using the phone, walking in cold or in a retail setting. We need to avoid adding additional resistance in the other person’s mind. Avoidance of “sales people” occurs in 80% of our population, the result of product pushing.

Here is the key;
“Do I understand what the other person really wants? Do I have an idea of how to talk in their “language”? Can I ask a question that will drop resistance and engage them in conversation”?

It has been proven time and time again that shoving your product in front of someone will create resistance not only to your product, but also towards you.

Review the first and second key from the last newsletter, your customer buys the “results” of your product/service/idea because it fixes, fills or satisfies their perceived needs. This means your product/service/idea is just a means to an end, not the main issue.

2. So our first action is to take the time and determine what it is that our product/service/idea does for the other person. Determine what the real results are from using your product/service/idea. Here are some examples.......More of this

4 Keys to Understanding Sales

Over the years I’ve read a hundred sales books with all kinds of different approaches and ideas. Some were very good and others left questions about their authors understanding of selling.

When ever I found myself in a slump or things just didn’t seem to work the answer always seem to be in the basics. A great chef, master carpenter or champion athlete always seems to have a mastery of the basics. So let’s take a look at what this idea of selling really amounts to.

First: Sales is two people, a customer and salesperson, communicating with each other. The customer is communicating their needs, wants and results required. The sales person is trying to understand these so the issue can be solved by their product or service. Just think of this as two people getting together to help each other improve their situations.

Second: Customers purchase products and services for the results they provide. This can be a real challenge for sales people that have been indoctrinated that sales are all about their product. This means saving time and money, preventing problems, solving problems or creating opportunities; that’s what the customer is looking for. Your product or service is simply a way or method to get the results, so salespeople need to communicate these results to customers instead of the product.

Third: Getting into new accounts, selling new and existing accounts and servicing accounts is all about two people communicating. Getting into a new account is about communicating results that the customer could achieve and communicating it in their language. The selling part is listening, questioning for clarity and communicating the results. Servicing the account is continued communications about the results to date and additional results needed.

Fourth: If we take the selling process, the objection response process or presentation part of selling and take the words “selling”, “objections” and “presentation” away, guess what we end up with. The “Selling” process becomes a communication process that is used every day. The “objection” response becomes a conflict resolution process and “presentation” becomes story telling.

Take this idea of communications instead of selling and see what happens to your productivity. Ask yourself what the potential results of your product could be from your customer’s perspective. Now think about how that could best be communicated to your customers.

We’ll explore each step of the sales process and how communications fits into it in future segments. For now, just think communications.

* DISC Behavior Patterns, ask us about how this can help you sell, manage and engage people check out our web site at www.hgoergerassoc.com or www.BusArc.com Questions or comments: Contact Harlan at Harlan@BusArc.com.

Wondering who we are and what we do?
Ask your self these questions:

• 
  Ever wonder why others sell and earn more than you?
  Frustrated with turn downs and unclosed sales?
  Your company tells you to sell, but there is no selling skills provided?
  Your doing ok, but the hours are killing you?
  If you could find a way to reduce your selling time and increse your closeing?
  Do you want more from your selling career?
  You work hard, but the sales just are not coming?

The answer to these questions is "Selling Skills"!

It is unbelivable how many companies hire people to sell, give them some product knowledge, invest in the benefits and hiring costs and then send them out to sell. This is with out selling skills or even some observations of other sales people.

No wonder the statistics show 80% of first year sales people leave the selling profession in the first year! They are frustrated, dejected, burned out and disapointed in thier inability to get the job done. They say it is much harder than they expected, yet all said they recived little if any "selling skills" training!

What kind of loss is this to these companies and mangers? The time to screen, hire and train a new person is not chicken feed! I always figured it was like burning a $5,000 bill everytime I hired a new salesperson!

Our answer to the new salesperson is Sales 101, check it out!

But now, what about the experianced or intermediate performer? What if an experiance person could take their performance up a notch? What would the return on investment be?

Experianced sales people have established a level of skill and ability that keeps them producing. But they are not unlike any profesional sports star that is always practicing thier skills. It is interesting that the top sports pros invest 6-7 times as much time in practice as they do in actual event time! How does that compare to most experianced sales people?

This is where Socrates really comes in! I run a verbal test in my training programs to determine the competency level of each participant in the are of Socratic Questioning. Guess what happens! That's right, 100% of experianced sales people fail to get 20 points! Most hit 3-7 points max! So is there room for improvement?

That's why we put so much effort into developing true "selling skills" in our programs. What have been the results? Experianced people:

• Have reduced thier selling time!
  Increased thier profit margins!
  Increased thier sales volume!
  Closed on bigger and tougher sales!
  Taken market share from their competitors!
  and more!

For our answer to the more experianced sales persons performance check out
Reverse Engineered Sales.

What do others have to say about their results? Take a look!

Bottom line, if you or your company want proven skill development that takes you and your team to a new level of skill, check us out at www.BusArc.com

To contact Harlan Harlan@BusArc.com