BMATWT 352 - Building Materials and Forest Products Marketing

Consultative Sales Presentation

Today's Objectives

1. Consultative Sales Presentation
   
2. Needs Discovery
   
3. Selection of the Product
   
4. Needs satisfaction
   
5. Persuasive Presentation Guidelines
   
6. Effective Presentation Guidelines

Source: Gerald L. Manning & Barry Reece, Selling Today: Building Quality Partnerships, Prentice Hall, Chapter 10

1. Consultative Sales Presentation

• Pre-plan questions
• Review product strategies
• Prepare to recommend other sources
• Preparre to use appropriate presentation strategy
• Review Presentation guidelines

FOUR PARTS

A. Part one: Need discover

1. Begins during approach with questions or survey at initial contact.
2. Pace, scope, depth, and time allocated to inquiry depend upon variety of factors.

B. Part two: Selection of the product

1 . Salesperson must select and recommend product or service that will provide maximum satisfaction.
2. Counseling process moves salesperson to create a "custom-fitted" product for the customer.
3. Buyer resistance less likely to surface when correct product is prescribed.

C. Part three: Need satisfaction through informing, persuading, and/or reminding

1 . Consists of communicating to customer, both verbally and non-verbally, satisfaction to be gained from product or service.
2. Emphasis placed on statements rather than on questions.
3. Statements are organized to inform, persuade, and/or remind customer of most suitable product or service.

D. Part four: Servicing the sale

1. Ensures maximum customer satisfaction and sets stage for long-term relationship with customer.
2. Includes suggestion selling, making credit arrangements, following through on assurances and promises, and dealing effectively with complaints.
3. Increased repeat business and referrals.

2. Need Discovery

A. Need discovery - effective communication between the salesperson and customer that produces clues of buyer motive (see Figure 10.4).

B. Adopt counselor style.

C. Asking questions

I . Ask appropriate questions.
a. Socrates noted that questions tend to make people think.
b. Good questions draw out the customer's perceptions. (Show "USING QUESTIONS TO MAKE THE SALE")
c. Four common types of questions are used in selling.
Information-gathering questions are used at the outset to collect certain basic facts and to establish greater rapport with customer (see Table 10.2). (Show "NEED DISCOVERY WORKSHEET")
Probing questions encourage prospect to reveal opinions and views that have a bearing on the potential sale.
Confirmation questions are used to verify that the sales message is being effectively communicated to customer (see Table 1 0. 1).
Summary confirmation questions help clarify an confirm buying conditions - things that must be fulfilled before the sale can be closed.

D. Eliminate unnecessary questions - have a thorough knowledge of the company before you present.

E. Listening and acknowledging the customer's response. Listening efficiency rate for most people is 25 percent.

1 . Developing active listening skills.

a. Active listening - the process of sending back to the person what you, the listener, think the individual meant.
b. Focus your full attention.
c. Encourage talking.
d. Paraphrase the customer's meaning with a confirmation question.
e. Take notes.
f. Express an understanding of the customer's feelings and perceptions.
g. Obtain feedback, asking questions to ensure our own understanding of the customer's thoughts and perceptions.

F. Establishing buying motives

1. Focus questions on determining prospect's primary reasons for buying.
2. Buying motives may be specific when a customer has a definite need.

3. Selection of the Product

SHOW SLIDE ("Discovering Needs and Selecting Products")
A. Salesperson is searching for a specific product to satisfy the prospect's buying motive (see Figure 10.5).

B. Match benefits with buying motives.

1. Emphasis should be on "specific" rather than "general" benefits.
2. The success of a sales calls related to the number of different needs discovered and benefits highlighted.

C. Configure a solution (see Figure 10.6).

D. Make appropriate recommendations.

1. Recommend product - customer buys immediately.
2. Recommend product - salesperson makes need-satisfaction presentation.
3. Recommend another source.

4. Need Satisfaction - Selecting a Presentation Strategy
SHOW SLIDE ("PRESENTATION STRATEGY")

A. Informative presentation strategy - emphasizes factual information.

1. Emphasizes clarity, simplicity, and directness.
2. Used with highly complex products and/or high-priced products.

B. Persuasive presentation strategy - used to influence prospect's beliefs, attitudes, or behavior and encourage buying action.

1. Commonly used in all professions.
2. Requires high level of training and experience.
3. Stresses the satisfaction a prospect will receive as a result of purchase.

C. Reminder presentation strategy - A reinforcement strategy used to remind customers of products/services.

1. Used to increase buyer awareness.
2. Used bv missionary salespeople.
3. Maintains market share.
4. Assumes that prospect understands basic product features and buyer benefits.
5. Relies on concepts of repetition and reinforcement.

5. Guidelines for Developing a Persuasive Presentation Strategy

A. Place special emphasis on the relationship - quickly establish rapport.

B. Sell benefits and obtain customer reactions - using the feature-benefit-reaction (FBR) approach. Translate product feature into customer benefit and ask confirming questions to obtain customer's reaction.

C. Minimize the negative impact of change - help customer view change in a positive way.

D. Place strongest selling appeal at beginning or end - either to gain attention or to close sale.

E. Target emotional links - connect your message to the emotions of the prospect.

F. Use metaphors and stories.

1 . metaphors are words or phrases that suggest pictorial relationships between objects or ideas.
2. Success of metaphor depends on finding common ground (shared or wellknown experiences) so that message gets free boost from something already known or believed to be true.

6. General Guidelines for Creating Effective Presentations
SHOW SLIDE ("TIME SPENT ON CONSULTATIVE SALES PRESENTATIONS")

A. Strengthen the presentation strategy with an effective demonstration.

1. Demonstrations should clarify product features, highlight features and benefits, and develop understanding of product performance.
2. Claims must be substantiated with proof strategies (see pp. 10-25).

B. Preplan methods for negotiating and closing the sale. Negotiation may focus on these areas:

1. Need awareness is vague or nonexistent.
2. Price does not equal perceived value.
3. The buyer is satisfied with present source.
4. The product does not meet the buyer's perceived requirement.

C. Plan for the dynamic nature of selling (see Figure 10.8). Because of the dynamic nature of selling, the salesperson must be prepared to apply several different selling skills.

D. Keep your presentation simple and concise.

1. The best way to achieve conciseness is to preplan the sales call.
2. Be prepared with accurate information and concise answers.
3. Use time wisely.
4. Prospect assumes greater role during need-discovery stage.
5. Salesperson does most of the talking during need-satisfaction stage, but never totally excludes the prospect.

E. The consultative sales presentation and the transactional buyer

1. Transactional buyer understands the product and knows where they need it.
2. Time cannot be wasted during presentation.
3. Solution should focus on pricing and delivery issues.

Produced and maintained by David T. Damery
Building Materials and Wood Technology
Department of Natural Resources Conservation
College of Natural Resources and the Environment
University of Massachusetts, Amherst.