Do you know what single sales tactic can raise your company above the quagmire of the competition? Forget about sales presentations and do doctor-type diagnosis instead.
Sales trainers have been feeding us long enough about the importance of listening. And yes, it's important.
But you know what? There is one skill that's even more important.
Let me give you a medical example. I use this because doctors don't have objections from patients, so their "sales" practices are worth modelling.
Yes, doctors listen to their patients' descriptions of their predicaments but they do something else too.
Guess what!
They don't take their patients' descriptions on face value but start digging for their own descriptions.
Doctors ask deep, penetrating questions. Questions that make patients think. Uncomfortable and inconvenient questions. Questions that often make patients cringe. Questions that make them feel embarrassed. Questions that help patients to comprehend the magnitude and the possible consequences of their problems.
You see, doctors can't afford to offer remedies based on patients' descriptions of their own symptoms. After all, as a result of incorrect diagnosis, some patients may end up pushing up daisies sooner than they intended.
Through their questions, doctors actually facilitate their patients' own decision-making processes, so patients come to their conclusions regarding their illnesses and the courses of remedy they need to take.
And this is what salespeople need to do to sell complex, high-ticket solutions.
Diagnosis documents have three major jobs.
So, if you listen to programmes on how to sell pots and pans door to door, then you may want to consider changing the approach.
Diagnosis documents are custom-tailored to individual companies and products/services and are based on buyers decision-making processes in such a way that the way the old, reptilian brain - our ultimate decision-maker - processes information.