Selling Skills Training | How to be the Sales Expert Like a Business Doctor

If you want to show the customer you’re different from all your competitors, try acting like a doctor in business: taking time to discuss the customer’s circumstances and difficulties will allow you win their confidence and trust. They may open up to you more, and tell you valuable information about why they might want to buy.

Think about what a really good doctor would do when visiting a sick person for the first time:

1) Don’t make assumptions. Be curious, and try not to think you know what the customer wants. Let them explain their problem and its effects to you.

2) Listen carefully. Show the customer that you are listening: this is called “active listening” for example, keeping eye contact, leaning forwards and responding without interrupting too much. Guide the conversation with your questions.

3) Diagnose with care. A great doctor will spend time looking at all your symptoms and even doing tests. You can do the same way with your customer, using your questioning skills to uncover the true effect of their problems. We call this finding the “cost of pain”.

“You will make more friends in a week by getting yourself interested in other people than you can in a year by trying to get other people interested in you”

4) Agree the best result with the customer. Once you have diagnosed business problems and their cost, ask permission to propose suitable options and agree with the customer what will work best.

5) Be honest, build trust. There are lots of occasions in selling, when you are faced with a choice whether to tell a lie or be honest, even if the effect may be negative for you. Generally, being honest is always the best policy: in the end, if you lie about your product or service, your customer will eventually discover this. But if you are open and direct with a customer about a shortcoming, they will instantly know they can trust you, and therefore, your product.

6) Don’t propose too early. How many times do you find yourself telling the customer how great your product is just after you meet them? It’s easy to dive in and offer a solution every time the customer mentions a problem that we think we can solve. But many proposals or offers made when we should still be diagnosing can appear pushy and arrogant.

If a customer is interested, they will respond well if you genuinely help them to make the right decision. Professional selling is not about forcing or tricking people, but helping them to want to buy from you.

“Like a doctor treating his patient, try different lines of enquiry before proposing a solution”.