During a sales call or demo, it is easy to be very product-focused.  After all, the product is what you’re there to talk about, right? 

As sales reps, we tend to focus on the product because that’s where our comfort zone is.  We talk about our products every day.  We know them inside and out. Naturally, when we get in front of a customer, our goal is usually to get through the demo, covering all the key points and features, and close the sale. 

So when we reach the end of a demo and think we’ve done a great job, we are too often surprised and disappointed when we don’t immediately close the sale.  The customer says, “Well, I don’t know…” or, “I’ll have to think about…”

The reason this happens so frequently is that there is a fundamental flaw in this transactional approach to sales.

Sales calls are not about your product

You may think it’s all about your product, but your customer doesn’t.  To him, it’s about him and the problems he must to solve or needs he must fill.  When you approach a customer with a focus on your product, you are missing key opportunities to uncover his buying criteria or any risk issues, and help him realize the return on investment and find reasons to justify the purchase.

Shift the focus to your customer

The goal of any sales call or product demo should be to find out what your buyer’s desired outcomes are and uncover how he sees your product’s features delivering them.  When you believe that understanding your customer’s desires is more important than getting through the demo, you pave the way for your buyer to see how the product can deliver what he’s looking for.

Here are three reasons you're more likely to close the sale if you listen more to the customer and focus less on your product.

You know your products, their benefits, and why they’re better than competing products; you talk about them every day. But your buyer only evaluates and buys these things once every few years. In many cases, a buyer is facing risk, uncertainty, and has many other issues to deal with that will affect his purchasing decision.  If your only focus is on the product and rushing to the close, you will very likely find your customer putting on the brakes.  Slowing down and engaging your customer in a discussion that moves at his speed and focuses on his needs will make him more comfortable with you and keep him interested in your product’s potential to help him get what he wants.

2. You prevent premature discussions about price.
When a rep starts talking about the product before the customer's problem/need and the desired outcomes are fully understood, the prospect asks about price too soon.  At this point, the rep assumes the buyer is deciding whether to buy or not.  But most buyers who ask for a quote early in the buying process have not decided they actually want to buy.  They are merely trying to determine whether the value they currently see is greater than the cost of the product.

This early focus on price almost always results in the objection, “Your price is too high,” because the prospect has not seen enough value potential to move forward.  By focusing on your customer and allowing him to tell you about his needs and his buying criteria, you can glean the information you need to help him see the full value of your product by relating his needs to the solution it provides. 

The problem with operating in a transactional mode is that the rep who does it is making too many assumptions about why the buyer is there and his criteria for buying. 

• He assumes the buyer wants to buy the product instead of using it to get a specific outcome.
• He assumes the customer sees value in the product without having uncovered the buyer's reasons for buying.
• He assumes the buyer knows how to make the decision and is comfortable making it.
• He assumes buyer knows how to calculate the return on investment.

But without an in-depth discussion about these things, the buyer has no way of knowing that what is being presented is the right choice.  By engaging your customer in a conversation about his needs and desired outcomes, you learn how to help him evaluate your offering against a competing product according to the right criteria.

Customer Aligned Selling™

Customer Aligned Selling is so much more effective than the traditional transactional approach to sales because it is focused on understanding the issues around why the buyer is interested in the product. Much like doctors can’t make an accurate diagnosis until they have asked enough questions, sales reps can’t make successful sales without asking more of the right questions up front.  Success in sales requires you to listen more than you talk.  That way, when you do talk, you can know what to say and how to say it in ways that will connect and resonate with your customer.