How do you respond when you find your customer has just lied to you?
How do you even know if they’ve lied to you?
What we don’t realize is our customers have lied to us far more often than we realize.
I’m not saying we can’t trust customers and that we as salespeople are so superior. Sorry, I’m not going down that road.
What I am saying is far too often customers lie, and we are so focused on trying to please them we wind up not even noticing it.
We as salespeople have to be become more discerning in understanding what is the customer is really saying.
For example, think about this line we have all heard from a customer: “No, I can’t buy from you right now.”
What is the customer really saying?
Are they saying they can’t buy because it’s illegal? Are they saying they can’t buy now but will buy later? Are they saying they can’t buy because they don’t have money? Are they saying they can’t buy because someone else is going to buy it instead?
I just listed four and I’m sure you can come up with at least four more. That right there is the problem. We don’t have a clue as to what the customer is really saying.
Problem for us is because we don’t know what the customer is saying, we quickly assume the’’re confused. The solution is we ask them questions to clarify what it is they just said. Right there is where the problem then becomes even bigger. You see, the customer may have lied to us not realizing they had done so. We then feed the issue by getting them to explain and their response may simply build on their lie.
If you’re doubting what I’m saying, let’s put it into another context.
Let’s say the customer says they’re not buying because your price is too high. Challenging them on what they just said could easily have them having to come up with another statement merely to build on what they just said. Result is the lie grows, when the real reason they feel the price is too high is you merely haven’t given them enough reason to buy.
Solution is not to challenge the customer’s comment, but to rather offer up ideas for them to think about.
By this I mean ask them questions that get them to share with you insights about what they’re looking for. Moving in this direction now makes it easier for the customer to share with you without any pretense or misconception.
Copyright 2014, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price.
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