Reversing

When prospects ask you a question (or use wishy-washy words, or try to mislead you, or use smokescreen tactics), wouldn’t it be nice if you knew for sure what their true intention was? David Sandler developed a tool to help the salesperson accomplish exactly this. It’s called reversing.

Prospects who’ve been in business for a while know just how to answer sales people without committing and saying anything concrete. They do this to mystify sales people. And if you get trapped by this and go along, then you’re mutually mystified.

What’s your primary job when you call on a prospect? To sell? To win a contract? To impress a prospect with your knowledge? Actually, none of these. That’s right, none of these.

It’s easy to miss something if you’re not looking for it. This is where reversing comes into play. When a prospect is firing away questions and you are just giving responses, there is no way of qualifying or disqualifying this prospect. Instead, think about why they might be asking those questions and what those questions can reveal. Answer the prospect’s question with a question; this is the definition of reversing.

In Part 1 of this two-part series, we introduced the topic of reversing. We emphasized that reversing -- answering a prospect’s question with a question-- helps you move beyond talking about pain indicators to discussing pain. Let’s now consider other key factors related to reversing.

Few things are stronger than the belief systems people have about things. People save lives because of what they believe in. People go to war because their belief systems prompt them to. And the last thing we, human beings, want to change are our belief systems. This includes the prospects you meet.

By making better decisions about which questions you answer directly and which you Reverse, you can increase the quality of the information you uncover during discussions with prospects, get behind the smokescreen and close more sales.

A common death trap salespeople fall into is having "happy ears," meaning, they tend to hear what they want to hear. In actuality, what they (salespeople) heard does not reflect the real intent of what the prospect said. Sales Tip