The Salesperson As A Master Detective

Get brand-new episodes of 5 Minute Sales Training sent to your inbox every Saturday morning. Totally FREE! Subscribe at the bottom of this post. 

If I’ve preached anything over the two decades plus that I’ve spent as a sales trainer, it’s that a customer’s motivation is the most important piece of information a salesperson can have.

But not every customer is begging to share their motivation with you.

Sometimes it takes a little digging, picking up a piece of their story at a time.

Great salespeople need to know how to connect the dots…

Here’s a recap of everything in this episode of 5 Minute Sales Training:

When detectives go to work, they don’t have all the facts. They have to dig.

They dig deep. They uncover details.

But you know what they really do? They connect dots.

If they don’t, what happens?

They come up with faulty assumptions.

Years ago, I was car shopping with my daughter, and we went out to a number of dealerships.

The salesperson wanted to talk about terms, but the deal was not my deal.

My deal was safety.

The truck that she was driving on her way back and forth from Northern California to Southern California, my truck, had broken down on the freeway.

But what did the salesperson want to talk about? Terms.

That’s not what I was buying.

Let me tell you something about great salespeople.

Great salespeople hate unconnected dots.

Here is a case study.

A guy walks into a jewelry store, looking at diamond earrings on February 12th.

It might look something like this.

Salesperson: “Looking for something for your wife?”

Customer: “Oh no, I’m not married.”

Salesperson: “Oh, well for your girlfriend then.”

Customer: “Well, no, I’m actually not attached to anyone.”

Now, pause there. What’s happening?

The salesperson has disconnected dots.

Would you dig in to figure this out?

I mean, something strange is going on.

It’s two days before Valentine’s Day, and the guy is there to buy jewelry.

Will you overcome the discomfort to find out what’s really going on?

It turns out that he’s a single dad recently widowed, and his 16-year-old daughter is going to a school Valentine’s Day prom.

The earrings are for his daughter.

Quick question to you, sales professional.

How important is that information?

Can you get the sale without knowing that? Yeah, you could, but it wouldn’t be selling. Not really.

The story might not be thick, it might not be dramatic, but that doesn’t make it unimportant.

The technique here is to search for the motivating emotion.

Not the sappy emotion, the motivating emotion.

Because as consumers we make emotion-based decisions.

We make the decision in our gut, we support it with our head.

Find the motivating emotion.

That’s what’s going to lead you on the path to the sale.

When you do this right, you end up with connected dots, and that’s a beautiful thing for you and for your customer.

Until next time, learn more, turn more.