How do we ensure that salespeople spend more time to understand the customer better and less time talking about the product?

What do most salespeople do? Start the call, introduce themselves and after a few admin questions like address and mobile number, straightaway launch into the product that they are selling. Hardly any probing happens, no understanding of customer needs, no relationship building at all. At a recent sales training for a real estate salesforce, the challenge we faced was how to ensure that the probing and understanding of customer needs is done by the frontline FOS (feet on street). The Relationship Managers who are employees of the company understood the need well, but the challenge was to ensure that the FOS practices the concept in the field.

How did we ensure this? The sales process was broken into five sub - processes:

a. Research sub process.

b. Lead generation.

c. KYC process.

d. Presentation process.

e. Follow up process.

For each of these sub processes a specific set oof activities was proposed and a set of measures put in place to ensure the process was followed. This was done as follows:

a. For the Research process, the understanding was that when we sell a flat to a potential buyer, it is not just important to know the details of the property i.e. carpet area, location, fittings, etc but also since a flat is actually a home and an extension of a lifestyle, it is important to know other details like:

a. schools: the mother would have an opinion of which school she wants to send her children to.

b. sports facilities: son plays football, daughter plays tennis.

c. hospitals: aged grandparents may need to be taken here in case of emergency.

d. restaurants, malls and cinema complexes: the family has these options for entertainment.

and many many more details.

And how do we ensure that the sales team actually possesses this information:

a. different members of the team are collecting this information.

b. a test would be conducted for each FOS and he has to pass this test.

..............ideas discussed in a recent sales training workshop for a large brokerage house that has diversified into real estate.