How to find out your prospect's requirements

Prospect's requirements is probably the most important information a sales person should get to turn a prospect into a customer. At first glance, getting user's requirements is an easy task: the only thing you need to do is to ask. However, experience shows that there are several factors which make this simple task difficult and make it hard for sales person to sell the product to prospects.

1. Few users who downloaded your trial version actually formed a clear vision of what they need (and these few either already uninstalled your program because it didn't meet their requirements, or they already contacted your technical support department themselves). 2. Neither sales person, nor prospect has enough time to send each other dozens of emails trying to clarify the requirements and make sure they talk about the same feature (moreover, statistics says only 5% of users will respond to your attempts to set rapport).

The answer is to ask the right questions, i.e. the questions that make the prospect define the key requirements and don't let him get into trifles. Once you are lucky to get the response, you need to thoroughly analyze the key requirements and offer the solution that exceeds the prospect's expectations (Ex.: Our spam filter not only blocks the spam emails but also automatically finds contact information on the spammer’s website and sends 10 emails in reply :-).

Don't think how to sell, think how to solve

The purpose of the salesperson is not to sell, but to get customers to buy. It is 100% true for IT sphere as software is not the water in the desert – people will not buy it just because you offered. When you think how to sell, in fact you think how to win, while customers are not enemies to put them in the position where they feel themselves defeated.

Salesperson should focus on establishing a strong relationship with the customer. Thus, instead of selling propositions, salesperson should try to find the best solution for customer's requirements. Sales tricks don’t work anymore, so if you want the customer to buy just find out his needs and show him how your software meets them.

Yes, it is not as easy as giving a discount to make the deal. Yes, it is no so fast as sending thousands of spam emails with a Christmas offer. Thinking how to solve customer problems by using your software requires knowledge of both the product and the customer’s needs, but it is the only way to build real long-term relationship that leads to customer satisfaction and loyalty.
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