Listening Your Way to New Business
Listening is the one sales technique that lawyers shouldn't live without. It saves you from having to make a pitch. Prospects hate being pitched (see discussion below).
The way to sell effectively is to meet a prospect and have five intelligent questions ready. The questions should demonstrate that you've made an effort to understand the prospect's business. The questions are designed to get the other person talking. They will tell you all the things you're supposed to look for to close the deal:
- The prospect's business "pain."
- What they want and how they want it.
- What's important to the prospect.
- Whether they have the money to hire you or buy your services.
- Every detail that should go into your proposal to hire you.
In fact, the prospect will write the proposal for you if you ask open-ended questions (those that cannot be answered by "yes or no," such as "tell me more about that") and just get them talking. By using the list-of-questions approach, you'll have to hire an associate to keep up with all the work coming in.
For more on turning leads into sales and 10 key questions to ask your target, visit my site at http://www.larrybodine.com/Listening.htm.
