Here’s a trick question:
Q: What do you do for a living?
The answer that most sales people will give as a response to this question is to say that they sell things. Though that is a plausible response, it isn’t really the most accurate. The actual answer is that you sell your ability to solve people’s problems. What you are really selling is how your product will solve a specific problem when it occurs or fulfill a customer’s particular need. For example, the purpose of automobile insurance is to protect the driver in the event he or she has an accident. If the driver never has an accident, then they are essentially paying a certain amount per month to have a slip of paper in the glove compartment. So in that case, the sales person is selling what his insurance can do for the customer if the worst event occurs.
To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, when dealing with a customer, it’s not what the customer can do for your product, but what your product can do for the customer. So what you need to remember is not to sell how great the product or service is or how great you are, but rather what the product or service can offer to your potential customer. At the end of the day, the customer doesn’t really care how the product or service accomplishes the end result.
In other words, the automobile insurance purchaser doesn’t really care very much about the intricacies of each feature of the policy he or she purchases, they only care that they are secure if they have an accident. The best way to accomplish this is listen to the customer. It is a natural reflex to want to immediately launch into the sales pitch. To tell the prospect why they absolutely have to purchase the insurance you are selling. The problem is that the sales pitch is it is focused on the how good the product is, not what the prospect wants and needs. The best sales people are the ones who know when to take a step back and listen to the customer. Letting them tell you their concerns first makes them more comfortable and gives you a chance to personalize your sales pitch.
Once you’ve gotten this information and created a level of trust and empathy, the sales pitch no longer comes across as selling, but rather as a presentation on how your product can help the customer with a particular need. The material is the same, but having taken the time to lay the groundwork, you now have a prospect who is receptive to your sales pitch, because he or she no longer views it as selling.
Tailoring your pitch to the customer’s needs makes it easier to close the sale. What you believe is important about your product or service is irrelevant. The most important thing in a sales discussion is what the prospect believes is important. Tailoring your presentation to the prospect’s needs gives your presentation a personal touch and allows the customer to feel that you are speaking to them personally and not just giving them a sales pitch. Even if you most likely are.
In closing, the most important person in any sales conversation is the customer. The goal of the conversation is to solve the customers problems (and if you make some money too, that’s great). If you can remember that and tailor your sales strategy accordingly, then it is likely that your answer to the trick question I asked at the beginning of this article will be: “Make a lot of money.”
David Tillinger is the Corporate Counsel for Digital Room, Inc.. In addition to his legal duties, Mr. Tillinger took over the company's primary blog and management of the company's website content. He currently splits his time between legal work and internet authorship Mr. Tillinger has blogs at 
