I’ve written a lot in this blog about how much more effective it is to ask questions than it is to pitch your product. I’d like to tell you a story that provides a great example of that.  I went to the Portland Auto Show last weekend and had an encounter I think might be instructive. Here’s what happened….

I was looking at the new Jeep Grand Cherokee, and wondered whether I could order one equipped exactly the way I wanted, so I found a sales guy …

Me: Is it possible to order a Grand Cherokee equipped exactly the way I want – like with cloth seats and a sunroof?
Sales Guy: We have 58 of these on the lot, and I’m sure we can find one just like you want.
Me: ………
Sales Guy: The Grand Cherokee was rated the best in three different magazines, it’s a great car.
Me: ………..
Sales Guy: We’re the biggest dealership in the Northwest, we sell 8 of these a week.
Me: ………

The “conversation” went on like this for at least five minutes until I finally left – without the answer to my question. Now I’m sure that all of you can see that my first question should have raised a big flag for this sales guy – here’s someone who is interested enough that he’s talking about actually ordering a car. And he missed his opportunity, because based on what happened, there is no way I’m buying a car from this guy.

Let’s look at a short version of how this conversation might have gone if the sales guy was remotely interested in understanding what I wanted:

Me: Is it possible to order a Grand Cherokee equipped exactly the way I want – like with cloth seats and a sunroof?
Sales Guy: That’s certainly possible. How would you want the car equipped?
Me: I want all of the off-road stuff like skid plates and locking differential and the tow package – and I don’t want a lot of the stuff that you package with it, like leather seats and a nav package.
Sales Guy: So you must be a real off-roader.
Me: Not so much – I like to get out in the mountains, like on logging roads, and want to have the right stuff for that.
Sales Guy: Why is it that you don’t want leather seats and so on?
Me: I don’t need them and don’t want to pay for them.  So how hard is it to order one like I want?

(Now I want to break into the conversation to examine what is going on for the Sales Guy.  He really doesn’t want to have to order a special car for me, for some good reasons. First, it is a pain in the butt to manage a special order; second, he won’t get paid until they deliver the car, which could be a couple of months; third, his boss wants him to sell cars off the lot and reduce the inventory; finally, he probably makes more money selling the one on the lot. On the other hand, I’m a hot prospect, and he doesn’t want to lose me. )

Sales Guy: How soon do you want the car?
Me: I’d like to have it for the rest of the ski season.
Sales Guy: Well, to answer your original question, we can certainly order the car, but there might be some downside for you if you did that.
Me: Oh? What downside?
Sales Guy: The first thing is that a special order takes at least a couple of months to arrive, so you’d miss most of the rest of the ski season.  The second is, that I don’t think there’s any way the dealership would give you the kind of discount you’d get on one of the cars we have on the lot, so the bottom line might be that you don’t save any money by eliminating the features you don’t want.  The upside, of course is that you’d have the exact car you want. Let me ask you another question – are you looking for any particular color?
Me: Well, there are a couple I’m not excited about, but not really.
Sales Guy: Well, that might make things easier. Let me suggest something.  You and I could sit down and go over all the options and configure exactly the car you want, and price it out.  Then we could look at our existing inventory and see if we have a car that’s reasonably close to what you want, and see what kind of deal we can do for you. If we can put together a car and a deal that you like, we can go that direction – if we can’t we can go ahead and order a car if you’re ready to do that. What do you think?
Me: You know, that’s not a bad idea.

Well, obviously a different conversation and a different outcome – and it happens just because the Sales Guy expends the effort to understand what I really need and want so that he can see if there’s a way to satisfy both me and his boss. There’s really no downside for the Sales Guy here. He either moves quickly toward the kind of sale he wants to make, or he finds out I’m not a qualified prospect.

So, the lesson is an easy one. Once again, asking is a better sales approach than telling. And listening to your prospect to find out what is really going on is the secret to better selling.