Today I was working with a team of engineers. I’ve been tasked with helping them learn to sell.
I know what you’re thinking; engineers can’t sell.
Well you’re wrong, they can…sort of.
You see they are extremely smart and passionate about what they do. Plus they are really good at what they do. That’s the problem. They’re too focused on themselves. They’re so excited about their ability to help their customers that they talk about it. But what the customer really wants to talk about is themselves.
So here is a sales tip. When you are prospecting, do everything in your power to not talk about your products or services. That’s right I said it. Don’t talk about what you do. Talk about the results of what you do.
Remember, people don’t by the drill bit, they buy the holes. People don’t buy engineering services, they buy what those services do.
Their customer didn’t wake up this morning and say “boy I need some engineering services”.
Here’s another tip. To help you start off the conversation, focus on what you believe your prospects top 3 issues are. You could say something like “when you’re working on (project type) we’ve found that these three issues typically come up (name three issues). What affect are these having on your current work?”
This does a few things:
1. It keeps the focus on the prospect
2. It shows you understand their business
3. It shows you’ve done this kind of work before
4. It qualifies the prospect (If they say that these issues don’t come up, you can follow-up with “Ok, what kind of issues do come up?”)
I’m glad you’re passionate about what you do. So is your prospect. After all selling is the transference of confidence. But you need to build trust and rapport before you’ve earned the right to talk about you.
So try this technique and see what kind of difference it can make.
