Questions are one of the most important part of a sales person’s job. End with a question is just another crucial technique you, as a salesperson or business owner needs to implement to ensure that all the other sales techniques we have been discussing, truly work.
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Bob: Good afternoon and welcome to Velocity Selling TV. My name’s Bob Urichuck founder of the Velocity Selling system and today, I’ve got Matthew Whyatt the CEO down in the Gold Coast of Australia. Matthew, how’s it going mate?
Matthew: Pretty good ‘eh? I think that’s how we’re supposed to say it.
Bob: There you go, now we’re even. Now Matthew, in our last episode we talked about asking questions and ending with a question, ending emails with a question, inviting replies, etc. We have another technique called strip lining. Why don’t you share with our viewers about what strip lining is all about.
Matthew: Well that Bob, actually reminds me, and I tell this story in my seminars about my kids fishing. And they always ask me, why do I catch more fish than they do and it’s sort of like new sales people versus old dogs and more professionals. The story goes, that my kids, when they’re out the back fishing, I live on the water, they’re out the back fishing the feel the tiniest little nibble and they rip the fishing line up.
Bob: Yeah.
Matthew: and the fish goes away. Whereas me on the other hand, I feel a little nibble and I’ll just wait, give it a bit more slack, wait for that really strong pull, then boom, it’s come and I’ve got that fish.
Bob: That’s excellent.
Matthew: And for somebody that just feels that little nibble, and feels that real hard pull- and how does that relate to sales? Well it relates to sales because most sales people, most sales people I deal with will get the client to say one positive thing, even a half positive thing or give them some sort of ‘mmm, that’s interesting’,
Bob: A buying signal.
Matthew: And then they’ll go for a close, they’ll go for a throw. And what happens to the sale, much like the fish, the prospect is like ‘woah, hang on, I’m not sold yet, or I’m not interested, I’m not ready to buy yet.
Bob: Yeah.
Matthew: And so what we do in Velocity Selling and what I teach my customers and of course what you have taught your customers for many years is to question their comment. For example, Oh that’s a really great feature Matthew, – rather than ‘Ah, how would you like to purchase?’ It’s “That’s interesting. How do you mean?’
Bob: Yeah.
Matthew: Or, ‘I see you using that.’ Or anything like that actually gets them speaking again because if we can go back to how buyers buy, if you remember, that everything that you say as a salesperson, everything that the business owner says to the customer is colored with the fact that there’s a financial benefit for the sales person or the business owner to make that sale. So buyers inherently don’t really trust salespeople.
Bob: That’s right.
Matthew: So what you want to do is flip that around and have them speak more. If they’re speaking, now remember everything the buyer says is actually true and correct. So if they tell you how wonderful the product is, they reinforce how they are going to use it, they can see themselves using it, then they are going to be more engaged and then they’ll give that real strong tug, then you can reel them in calmly.
Bob: That’s excellent Matthew. That’s excellent. It’s the, in the olden days traditional sales used to teach trial closes and closes.
Matthew: That’s right.
Bob: And this strip lining, replaces the trial close, puts the owning back on the buyer and lets them sell you on why your services or your product you are offering is so great. Excellent tip Matthew. What are we going to discuss next week? You got to get, I think you have, another questioning technique you’d like to share.
Matthew: Ah, look Bob I’ve got actually quite a few. I think we’ll talk about a ‘Let’s Pretend’ so let’s move on to that one next week shall we?
Bob: ‘Let’s Pretend’ is next week. We’ll see you next week Matthew, thanks a lot for your time.
Matthew: Thanks Bob bye for now.
Matthew has been involved in the growth of many businesses across multiple industries including, health products, software development, IT consultancy, Real Estate and franchise sales with personal sales of over $100 million.
After all of this hard work Matthew took a year off with his wife and two children in Bali. After returning to Australia Matthew was ready to take on his next challenge, following his passion in Sales, and joined the Velocity Selling team as CEO.
