I was talking to one of the sales resources of a company I’ve been associated with. He is primarily selling a retail solution that allows his customers to increase their sales. Pretty decent to have a solution that increases sales, isn’t it? But then, he wasn’t able to sell his solution as he assumed that it would sell, because his prospective customers weren’t seeing it the way he does. Fortunately, he was able to get in front of his prospective customers to present his solution.

Well… he has found a way to do the first thing right, getting his prospects interested in listening to him. But he wasn’t progressing beyond that. He wanted a quick fix solution and wanted to increase his conversions to an acceptable level. He was asking for a solution during one of our casual conversations.

I got into asking him a lot of questions and during which time, I realized that his presentations always are a monologue as opposed to them being a dialogue. Some of the mistakes that he was doing during his presentations were:

1. He was doing close to 100% of the talking
2. His presentations were too long and too detailed
3. He assumed that the prospect knew his solution as well as he did
4. He was focusing on what he thought were important as opposed to what his customers wanted
5. Focusing on features versus what the customers will gain

After understanding all of this, I told him that he is wasting all his opportunities with these presentations and it would result only in frustration and not in the growth of his company. I just told him to ask his prospects a lot of questions, listen to those questions, then try and answer their questions. We in fact got down and worked out a series of questions that he may possibly ask his customers and understand their pain points. Once he does that, he can offer the benefits of his solution that will address their pain points.

I have also asked him to share the results of this exercise, which I will share with my blog readers as soon as I get them.

customer acquisition customer benefits customer pains sales dialogue sales opportunities sales pitch sales presentations