The Customer Needs Exploration Journey

After being well prepared and connected in a positive manner, the door is open to you to discover the needs of your customers. Do not start delivering your wonderful presentation about how good you and your products are. I know it is very tempting to do, certainly when you are so full of the qualities of your products, but this is not going to help much in building a good professional relationship.

This was an error I made often when I started my career in selling. It was tied to my enthusiasm to convince the customer that my product was the best choice for him. Off course my product was the best choice in my mind! This was not always the idea of my customers. A valuable lesson I learned later.

The most successful sellers I have observed during customer visits had prepared a list of what they called “High Quality Questions.” What really got to me, was that before going into a call, they went over this list several times. The effect of it was that they asked quite a lot of these questions during the call. Doing this delivered most of the time excellent worthful information. We all know that information and certainly high-quality information is key to really know what your customer wants and to bring tailor made solutions to the table.

Too often we make assumptions about what our customer wants and then we deliver our message accordingly. This message is not going to hit the target. So, my advice would be to dig deeper to really get to know the profound needs of your customer. Stay in the dialogue modus with your customer. Ask questions for which you do not have the answer. At these moments you are really learning more about your customer, you are on the exploration and discovery journey.

Listen to connect deeply. The more your customer is talking the better, so avoid interrupting. This is something a lot of sellers dare to do; they want to share their information immediately after hearing some words related to their topic. The risk is clear you could miss out a lot of information that will stay down under in the iceberg of your customer.

Another point is to make it safe for your customer to express his/her thoughts. If your customer doesn't feel safe, he/she will not share everything. You will be missing out a lot of valuable information and this is not going to help you to realize your objectives.

Before starting the exploration of your customer needs it is worth to announce why you are going to ask questions. People love to understand the reason you are asking questions. You just could say “To understand your situation better I would like to ask you some questions, would that be ok for you?" If they say yes, they agree you asking them question. It also gives the sense of being in control of the meeting a need that many of us have.

Start having conversations in a level III modus (Conversational Intelligence), meaning share and discover. When conversating in the level III, oxytocin is liberated in the prefrontal cortex. The benefit is that you will gain deeper trust faster.

  My next article will highlight what to do to make is safe for your customer.