If you are always reading up the latest and most authoritative in sales literature, you 'll find that books ranging from Solution Selling to SPIN Selling to Conceptual Selling advocates sales people to ask customers questions.

    In fact, it is a fact asking questions is the best way of knowing your customers implicit and explicit needs, their buying processes as well as allowing you to take control of the situation.

    However, if you have been making enough cold calls, you will know that most new prospects and customers whom you are contacting for the first time, they tend to be rather stand-offish, and are not willing to divulge much about their situation and needs.

    Those few remaining who are friendly to you on your first call, tend to want some freebies from you WITHOUT ever wanting to give anything back!

    So what are the ways that you can build instant trust and rapport, so that you can ask whose questions, get the answers you need, and remain in control of your sales processes?

    Here are 3 ways:

Be sincerely speaking from your customer's interest

"You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. " - Dale Carnegie

    While selling and making friends are rather different, the principle lies in that customers don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.

    Hence, before you ask any questions, you may want to let your customer know:

    An example will be, "Hi, I'm Joe from ABC company.  I'd like to find out if your company can improve your debtors' aging by as much as 20% over the next 3 months with an easily implemented method.  Can I ask you a few questions?"

    The downside of being sincere is that customers, especially in a place like China, tends to reply with, "So what are you trying to sell me?"

    Still, you stand a far better chance for being sincerely speaking in your customer's interest than if you don't.  One good place to find out how you can do so with great finesse is www.unlockthegame.com  The owner of the site, Ari Galpher, is an expert when it comes to building instant trust and rapport with customers whom you are calling for the first time.

Share a reference case

    When customers say, "So what are you trying to sell me?" or cast any doubts, it's usually because there are too many other sales people out there who have been pushing products without really getting to know their customers well.

    Such customers haven't learnt how to trust you yet.

    One way of overcoming such responses is to share a reference case with the customer on how you have helped others get better results from your products/ services. 

    A reference case usually have a minimum of 3 parts:

    So when a customer says , "So what are you trying to sell me?" , a possible response can be, "Hang on......I'm not going after your money yet.  What I'd like to do is to share with you a successful case where we helped XYZ company to improve their debt collection by using our SuperDuper Debt Reduction service.  Eventually, they managed to half the time to collect their debts within 3 months.  Would you like to find out more on what exactly we did to help them?"

    Of course, as in any cold calls, there will be some customers who will say "No!" no matter what you do.  If that happens, that's OK, because your time and energy will then be more effectively used by those customers who say, "Tell me more", won't it?

    More details can be found in Mike Bosworth's Solution Selling (see http://www.amazon.com/Solution-Selling-Creating-Difficult-Markets/dp/0786303158/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-5229965-9983833?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176101500&sr=8-1)

Avoid cold calling

    There are yet other experts who advocate that cold calling is a thing of the past, and to be successful, you have to have "warm calls" instead of cold ones.

    The various ways in doing so are:

    The downside of not cold calling is that you may not have enough leads in the pipeline to work on, especially when you have just started selling in your field of business.  In the world of referrals, it's usually operated under the notion of "Givers Gain".  That means you have to be willing to share and give (be it referrals for others' businesses or simply your time to cultivate the relationship).  That means going the "no cold call" way might need a bit more time (than you can afford) before you generate any sales. 

    However, here are some resources to learn from if you want to know more on how to get new customers without having to make cold calls:

Conclusion

    Without any doubt, asking questions is the most optimal way of finding out your customers' needs, their buying processes as well as allowing you be be in control of your sales process.  There are a number of ways to make your customers talk, and there is no best way to build trust and rapport with them.

    My advice is that you evaluate each way and determine which one work best for you.  If need be, use all 3 ways mentioned above!  Should you need more assistance in this area, feel free to contact info@psycheselling.com  All information shall be kept in confidence.

　

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