Diagnosis: Diagnosing the Customer's Need [Sales Process Part 5 of 9]

The first stage of the actual sale part of the sales process is diagnosing what your prospect needs or wants – and understanding which is which. This is the investigation, or diagnosis, stage of the sales process.
The Book of the Course!
Sales Skills: A Management Courses Introduction
This book gives a broad introduction to the topic, for managers and professionals who don’t want or intend to specialize in sales and selling. And as a fast start for someone needing to make a start in selling, for whatever reason.
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Watching this video is worth 2 Management Courses CPD Points.
See below for details
Sales and Selling Skills
This video is part of course module 8.4.1
Program 8: Managing Customers and Clients
Course 4: Sales / Selling Skills
Section 1: The Sales Process
Other videos that describe the Sales Process:
The Sales Process https://youtu.be/iPZNem-Xguw
Sales Prospecting https://youtu.be/m7bQ4wNeZmo
Pre-Sales Activities https://youtu.be/lEBsFG_jqnU
Rapport Building https://youtu.be/aJqduxW2MA4
Opening the Sales Meeting https://youtu.be/gjI7e-DBPH4
Presenting Solutions https://youtu.be/xf-mhhbL2tk
Handling Objections https://youtu.be/S6JFm46Gfso
Seeking Commitment https://youtu.be/1D1-VC9Ccjk
After Sales Activities https://youtu.be/3qrrlXwDjJI
LESSON NOTES
Your aim is to identify personal and organizational needs, and priorities, so that you can understand the value that different potential solutions will offer your prospect. Particular things to pay attention to are:
• Fears
• Drivers
• Constraints
• Timescales
• Cost sensitivities quality standards
• Things they have tried before
Process
We use question to understand our prospect’s needs, priorities, preferences, and desires. Follow a funnel process, in three stages:
1. Broad, open question
2. Detailed, probing questions
3. Checking, confirming questions
Keep going until you have learned as much as you need – or, at least, as much as you can.
And, importantly, as you go, always be
• Listening
• Acknowledging - ‘I see’
• Taking notes. Even if you don’t need notes to remember the details, it signals to your prospect that you are taking their answers seriously.
SPIN Selling
Neil Rackham’s famous SPIN Selling book - https://geni.us/Ir5xu - suggests a framework for the four stages of eliciting information from your prospect:
- Situation
- Problem
- Implications
- Need
Pre-Close
Once you have a clear sense of what their problem is, and the need they want to fulfil, you can try a pre-close:
‘If I could show you a solution that will resolve this problem, within your budget, would that be something you’d want to consider seriously?’
RECOMMENDED EXERCISE
1. If you are not familiar with the question funnel, be sure to memorize the basic process (1 MC CPD Point)
2. Also memorize the SPIN framework (1 MC CPD Point)
DOWNLOADS
Free Resources
CPD Tools - https://gum.co/MC-CPD
Paid resources
Management Courses Onboarding Kit - https://gum.co/MC-ObK ($3)
RECOMMENDED READING
There are many books that introduce sales and selling. These are the ones I have, and can recommend:
To Sell Is Human https://geni.us/L2EQmt
The Only Sales Guide You'll Ever Need https://geni.us/AEAVD5
The New Strategic Selling https://geni.us/Zt2Z9n3
SPIN Selling https://geni.us/Ir5xu
The Psychology of Selling https://geni.us/AjR8AA
Links to our book recommendations are affiliated through Amazon and help support our free videos
Managers Need a Basic set of kit to do your job well. Here are my top recommendations: https://kit.co/MikeClayton/manager-s-work-kit (the links are affiliated)
MANAGEMENT COURSES CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT (CPD) POINTS
You can record your Management Courses CPD points on our free, downloadable CPD record log.
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Each video has two levels of MC CPD points. For this video:
- If you simply watched the video, record 2 MC CPD points
- If you also carried out all of the recommended exercises, score a total of 4 MC CPD points
CHAPTER MARKERS
00:00 - The first part of actually selling in the sales process
00:28 - The purpose of the Diagnosing step of the Sales Process
01:06 - The Diagnosis Process
01:44 - Open Questions
01:54 - Probing Questions
02:11 - Closed Questions
02:24 - Extending the questioning process
02:54 - Repeating the questioning process
03:22 - Valuable tips for the questioning process
03:50 - Using Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling method
05:01 - The Pre-close
#SPIN-Selling #Sales #SalesProcess