How to coach your customers to win more business

Hello Sales Reset Community

Are all of your customers fully aware of everything that your products and services could potentially do for them?

The answer is almost certainly NO!

What’s the best way to help customers understand what you can do for them?

Conventionally, people in selling roles do the following:

1. Ask some discovery questions.

2. Use presentations and demonstrations to enable customers to learn more about their products and services.

3. Based on answers to discovery questions, recommend what should be purchased.

4. Follow up on this conversation with a proposal full of information about what is being sold.

At Sales Reset, we prefer a different approach. We strongly recommend learning how to coach your customers and co-create proposals.

This week, we’re looking at how you can coach your customers. Next week, we’ll follow up with what it means to co-create proposals with your customers.

How you'll improve sales results this week

• What do we mean by “coaching customers”?

• How to coach your customers

• The best coaching questions are typically “open qu …

• Potential Challenges

• How to practice coaching customers this week

• End of Week - Reflective Practice

What do we mean by “coaching customers”?

Coaching customers is one of the most essential Sales Reset skills to learn and practice continually.

The big idea is to use your specialist market and product knowledge to ask your customers great coaching questions. Your coaching will help your customers define the outcomes they’re seeking more accurately.

Then, you can review together how your products and services can help this customer achieve these defined outcomes.

You’ll enable your customers to develop a better understanding of the outcomes they’re seeking from a potential investment.

And as you help your customers to better understand the outcomes they’re seeking, you’ll increase the chances they’ll buy from you! 😀

How to coach your customers

Coaching is very different from advising.

• Advisors use their knowledge to make recommendations.

• Coaches use their knowledge to ask questions that enable the person being coached to work things out for themselves.

Most salespeople work as advisors. The best salespeople work as coaches.

Here are the most significant skills in coaching customers:

• Ask great questions that require customers to think through the implications of a potential purchase.

• Listen carefully to how customers respond as you help them explore their options.

• Talk much less than the person you’re coaching!

• Answer their questions briefly, and try to follow up on each of your answers with a question about the implications of this answer for them.

The best coaching questions are typically “open questions”

Open questions can’t be answered “Yes” or “No”. Open questions typically start with one of the six open-question words.

Here are the six open-question words with some example questions:

What - What are you hoping to achieve with this proposed investment?

When - When do you expect to make these changes?

Where - Where will these changes have the biggest impact?

Who - Who will be affected by these proposed changes?

Why - Why are you thinking of making these changes?

How - How will the impact of these changes be reported?

The goal of your coaching is to help customers define the outcomes they seek from a potential purchase.

Ideally, your coaching will lead to developing a shortlist of the most significant outcomes your customer needs.

You can then centre your proposals on this shortlist of outcomes. Any recommendations about your products and services can be linked specifically to achieving these outcomes.

Potential Challenges

• Customers may be uncomfortable - They may not have considered all of the implications of a potential purchase. This means they may not be clear about the outcomes they’re seeking. They might feel uncomfortable when your coaching exposes this lack of clarity.

• Not what customers expect - Most customers don’t expect to be coached by people in sales roles. You'll need to earn sufficient trust, respect and permission to coach them.

• More time required - Coaching enables your customers to develop a better understanding. However, coaching almost always takes longer than advising. There’s a risk that you’ll run out of time just when your coaching is making great progress. You can always conclude at this point by arranging to continue another time.

How to practice coaching customers this week

1. Stop advising! - In your conversations with customers this week, remind yourself to talk less about what you’re selling, do less advising and work more as a coach.

2. List of outcomes - Your goal should be to leave selling meetings with a prioritised list of your customer's desired outcomes.

3. Confirm after meeting - Your customers will thank you for confirming this list of desired outcomes in writing after the discussion.

End of Week - Reflective Practice

At the end of this week, ask yourself these key questions:

We hope you’ve found this Weekly Sales Reset valuable.

Have a great week!

The Sales Reset Team

Community of Practice

Ask Questions, Share Your Experience

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• LinkedIn Group - Join our World-Class Customer Success Selling Group on LinkedIn to ask questions or comment.

• Sales Reset Together Community - Click here to learn more about our private community of members committed to achieving and maintaining their Sales Reset.

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