Sales starts when you listen actively to what your prospect says and try to show what is in your product for him.
Need satisfaction selling is a form of custom designed sales presentation in which the salesperson first defines the needs of the prospective and then attempts to provide a solution that meets those needs.
The professional selling skills program(opens in new tab), or PSS for short, was also popularized as Selling by adopting the philosophy of Needs Satisfaction.
Xerox corporation spent $10 million to develop this advanced methodology, which started in 1968, and later on they created the Xerox Learning Systems department that started promoting this new selling technique
It is more functional that a Sales Person must practice new sales ideas in order to close a sale. This also emphasizes that the product or the service the company offers has a value that ends up creating a need for the potential customer or prospect to buy it. .
The need satisfaction selling methodology is viewed as one of mutual satisfaction, in which both the buyer and the seller are satisfied. This theory is founded on the concept of a win-win situation for both the sales representative and the prospect .
According to the theory, before presenting the product to the prospect and closing the deal, the salesperson should investigate the prospect’s needs and requirements.
In this case, the salesperson should actively listen to the buyer’s concerns and then respond to them while keeping the customer’s needs in mind. unless sales representatives recognise their prospects’ needs and seem to have product knowledge, they will never be able to sell, or keep customer satisfaction.
One of the main basic fundamentals of the PSS program was being able to know and apply the “FAB process,” a system that clarified the importance of presenting the features, advantages, and benefits of a product or service to the customer.
Customers dont buy products, they buy solutions to their problems to avoid pain or gain certain pleasure.
And by thoroughly understanding the FAB process, a salesperson should then go through the 4 steps of PSS selling starting by needs identification, presentation, objection handling, and ending by effective closing.
This Need Satisfaction Theory is divided into three stages:
1. Relationship Development :
The salesman must listen carefully as the prospect uncovers relevant details about his or her needs, which may lead mostly in the sale of the product.
Salesman should find common things between them and build rapport.
2. Need identification :
An aware salesperson will be capable of recognizing the prospect’s needs before the prospect does.
Through probing and asking open questions , sales men can know a lot about the customer and his needs as well as the other options from competitors that he puts into consideration.
3. Need Satisfaction :
During the Need Satisfaction stage, the salesperson makes a presentation on the products attributes that are related to the needs and how they will help the prospect.
The salesperson’s presentation and explanation skills are required at this stage to close the sale.
Closing will be easier if everything is clear to the customer and the product presentation was relevant to his needs
This amazing process, developed by Xerox and still very much in business today, includes the simple following seven stages:
- Planning the sales call by knowing who is your customers and expect the questions that he will ask and prepare an informative presentation backed by evidence based research and proofs.
- Introduce yourself / company and start the sales call and this stage is relationship development
- Asking open questions and probing for deeper knowledge and insight into the prospect’s business and personal needs
- Introduce benefits that would satisfy the needs of the customer as well as turning each feature and advantage into relevant benefits
- Efficiently Identify and effectively handle any objections and other buyer attitudes which includes (skepticism and indifference).Don’t underestimate any tiny question raised by a customer.
- Close the deal and negotiate terms using many closing techniques like the alternative close by telling the customers about 2 options that he should choose one of them.
- Follow up with the customer by a meeting or a call to ensure customer satisfaction