Why you need 3 L's to get the W(in)

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Why you need 3 L's to get the W(in).

I published a new thread on my Twitter feed this morning. It describes, briefly, the 3 L's that I follow on each sales call, presentation, or as I work through the sales process with a new prospect.

Learn. Listen. Lead. Let's break them down.

Learn: Before you enter a conversation with a potential customer, you should take the time to research, learn, and understand the industry that their business is in using the standard who/what/how methodology.

• Who are their competitors?

• Who is providing your product/service to them today?

• What type of industry are they in?

• What do they sell/produce/manufacture/provide?

• How does this industry typically make purchasing decisions?

• How does this industry respond to selling efforts by vendors?

If you're not able to logically understand the basics of your prospect's business, how are you going to help solve their problems? 

Listen: Whenever you're in a communications moment with your potential customer, put yourself in a position to Listen, take notes, and continue to learn. In order to develop a valued solution you need to find out the answers to these questions while communicating your intentions:

• Who is the decision maker?

• Who impacts the purchasing process with the decision maker?

• What are the current challenges or obstacles that your prospect is facing?

• What are their future goals? How can your solution(s) help them achieve those goals?

• How are you asking questions? Which types of questioning methods are you using?

• How do you show that you're listening? Non-verbal? Verbal validation?

Lead: This is the moment when you begin to communicate your learned expertise, as well as how effectively you've listened. Your objectives should be simple to understand.

• Set clear intentions, this includes, setting an agenda for moving forward and communicating the expected next steps in your sales process to your prospect.

• Educate your prospect by developing a problem statement that you specifically crafted after listening to their challenges and goals.

• Handle objections with ease by using your built-up rapport, and by providing expertise and knowledge of your prospect's industry and business.

We aren't discussing your selling process in this thread, however, there should be an obvious and defined place where you shift from learning and listening, to leading and guiding the prospect through the rest of your process.

The moral of the story? Enter every selling situation as if you "don't know what you don't know." Expect to be educated. Be excited to learn. Provide non-verbal ways of communicating while you're listening and lead your prospect through the conclusion of your selling process by setting clear expectations and intentions. The most successful sales professionals listen more than they speak. They position listening in to providing their prospect with a defined problem statement that can be rallied around, together, for expected solutions. They master developing the problem statement into positioning their products or service strengths, helping to increase closing percentages and selling more business. It's part of selling consultatively, and if you want to do more winning than losing, you should do the same. 

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