Teaching the power of inquiry
Can salespeople learn to stop talking and start asking questions?
Successful selling might not lie in the answers you give your customers so much as the questions you ask them. In fact, those with whom First Impressions spoke agreed that successful selling consists of 1) knowing your customer, 2) knowing your products, and 3) knowing your capabilities and those of your company; and then, of course, closing the sale. The question is, can these skills be taught?
Know your customer
"The people who are really good at asking questions are the ones who get the doctor to think about things he or she hadn’t thought of before, or to think about them in a way they hadn’t before," says Greg Biersack, vice president of operations, Burkhart Dental Supply, Tacoma, Wash. Good listeners - and good learners - often surprise their customers that they have the knowledge to ask the questions they do.
"You hope to hire people who are naturally inquisitive," he continues. "Hiring people who are more traditional, more of the presenter types, does require more work. But can everyone develop these skills? Absolutely. And as people see the power of inquiry, they get more excited about asking questions."
Careful questions can help reps overcome price objections, an especially important skill in economic conditions such as those the industry is facing today, says Biersack. "It’s easy to get caught up in the price scheme," he says. "But we really stick with our core - making sure [our reps] are asking the good questions and bringing value.
Biersack gives an example: Doctor asks new account manager for a quote on a pan, then tells the rep that he’ll get the business if he lowers the price by a thousand dollars. "Now, what does that branch manager or equipment specialist do?" asks Biersack. "Do they lower the price? That’s a question I love asking when I am interviewing [potential reps]."
Ultimately, he says, it comes down to this: Without asking, how does the account manager know that the pan for which the doctor wanted the quote is the one that she actually needs? "By simply giving a quote, the rep adds no value," says Biersack.
Instead, the account manager needs to stop, take a breather, then say, "Doctor, I want to make sure that the pan I’m getting a quote on is the one to best meet your needs." After some questioning, the rep might find that the doctor’s original request was for more than she needed - or less. Provided the account manager can match the need with the best piece of equipment, the doctor will actually appreciate the questions.
"That’s what we’re trying to get our people to do," says Biersack. "Make sure you’re asking questions, make sure you’re focused on what that doctor needs. We’ve all seen doctors buy something and then not use it. That’s wasted money. So it’s not about the price. It’s about getting the right product and helping the doctor use it effectively."
Understanding the customer’s business
Questioning - and careful observation - may be the only ways to understand the customers’ needs. Paradoxically, it’s difficult to ask good questions without first having an understanding of the customer’s craft and business. That’s the basis of the Dental Trade Alliance Mini-Dental School at the University of Colorado/Denver School of Dental Medicine. Geared to distributors and manufacturers, the two-day course - which is taught by the Denver dental school’s faculty - is designed to give students a close-up look at their customers’ businesses. They learn about the economics of dental practice, a day in the life of an established dentist and the language of dentistry. Some lessons are hands-on, adds Christine Cook, continuing education program coordinator. For example, attendees might do an actual impression or administer a simulated root canal.
It is only by understanding the customer’s business that the rep can define and explain value to him or her, says Jim Aycock, director of sales for Midmark Corp. Yes, delivering good products in a timely fashion at reasonable prices are absolutely essential components of successful selling, he says. "But if you understand how the business runs and operates, you can explain the value of the product you’re bringing, and you can define what the realistic expectations [for it] are on the part of the practice."
In fact, "value" encompasses far more than purchase price, and reps have to be able to convey that to the customer, continues Aycock. "You have to talk about [the product’s] impact on revenue and other costs." With labor consuming the lion’s share of any practice’s revenues, for example, it stands to reason that the dentist will value products or equipment that can help the practice reduce its workforce or avoid hiring new staff.
Burkhart is in step with this approach. The company’s multistep training process begins with a module on Dentistry 101. Burkhart wants its reps to understand the different specialties and procedures that constitute modern dentistry, says Biersack. With that knowledge comes an understanding of the materials that dentists use in their craft.
Along with understanding the craft of dentistry, new reps are taught to understand the business of dentistry, he adds. "We really want to make sure they understand the challenges that dentists face in running their practices." Burkhart’s consulting division exposes the trainees to a variety of concepts, such as scheduling, insurance, "and all the different pieces and parts of running a successful business," he says. They also share with the reps certain benchmarks and metrics that dentists use to gauge the performance of their practices.
"We help [trainees] understand their role in identifying when the doctor needs help, and then recognizing that they have something to help them," he adds. "Many times, doctors don’t think of their supply rep as someone who can help them with their business. We’re trying to change that."
Know your products
Having come to understand their customers’ businesses, reps must then match the dentist’s needs with their companies’ product and service offerings. To a certain extent, such knowledge comes over time. But the learning curve can be shortened. Burkhart’s new reps, for example, are trained on how to use a variety of tools - including catalogs, Web site and the customer service team - to help them quickly locate products and services to meet a specific customer’s needs.
New reps are required to take online product-training modules to increase their knowledge of the products they sell. Online training can provide good, basic product knowledge, says Biersack. "But what the reps can learn from each other when they get together is extremely important," he adds.
On every other Friday, Burkhart orchestrates sales meetings at each of its branches. Called "red-pack videos," the sessions call for the branches to view a video from corporate (delivered in a red package) explaining new products, company programs, etc. Manufacturers are called in to talk about their products.
The meetings also give reps a chance to talk about what they’ve learned from the online modules. The interaction is invaluable, says Biersack. "Somebody says, ‘I watched the module and it said this.’ Then somebody else says, ‘I heard that too, but one of my doctors using it said they were having a hard time placing that composite.’ So there is value in the online. But what they learn from each other when they get together is also extremely important."
Manufacturers can play a key role in helping reps understand the products and equipment they sell. Providing good catalogs and online training are two ways to do so. But face-to-face education and ride-alongs are an essential part of the process, says Aycock.
"Reps have to respectfully, tactfully, ask the proper questions," he says. As an example, he points to operatory lights. "The dentist uses the same light every day on every patient, but they don’t know whether it’s good or bad. It works." There’s no way to tell whether a light is fully functional or not by looking at a book or attending a training session. "You can go to seminars, but until somebody looks at that light and has a conversation while you’re there, it’s hard to know." The dentists themselves don’t know whether it’s what Aycock calls a "pain point" or not. They’ve simply grown accustomed to the light they’ve been using for years.
But lighting is critical, he continues. "The eyes become more challenged and compromised as a person ages, and anything the rep can do to improve the health of [his customers’] eyes pays huge dividends." Manufacturers can point out issues such as these to the distributor reps at the branch, but then they must go out in the field to show reps how to identify potential pain points, and then how to ask insightful, yet tactful, questions.
Aycock also points out that today’s reps need to be much more knowledgeable about technology than those who preceded them. "In the past, when the [most advanced] technology was the fax machine, the question was, ‘What kind of thermal paper should we use?’" he says. But today, personal computers are everywhere - not just in the front office, but chairside too. "It’s difficult to be a provider of supplies and materials without having some working knowledge of how technology works in that office."
Networkers
And it also helps to understand how technology works in other offices. That’s because distributor reps are in a unique position to observe how their customers operate and then share that knowledge with other customers - without divulging trade secrets, of course.
"Reps deal with anywhere from 60 to 120 accounts," says Aycock. "Being inside them, they see how they work, they understand what various business models look like. So they can bring [to the dental practice] not just the educational training they’ve received, but also what they see working in the real world." Perhaps, based on what they have observed among their customer base, they can make suggestions about things as mundane as signage or parking, or about processes other dentists are employing to drive revenues. What’s more, they can draw on stories told to them by their fellow reps about their customers. In effect, they can act as practice consultants.
"But they have to let the dentist know that," says Aycock. Dental professionals have numerous sources of information. "Every professional is bombarded with it," he says. "That’s the opportunity for the sales rep. Somebody who has a face and voice, and the unique capability of connecting eye-to-eye with the dentist, needs to speak up and get past all the noise," he says. "The one person who is in a unique position to do that is the distributor rep, who’s calling on that practice every two or three weeks.
"And while they may have a feeling the doctors know [the value and experience] they can bring, it’s too easy to make that assumption."
Sidebar:
Focus on Customers, not ourselves: Sullivan
We may be spending too much time thinking about what we should call ourselves and our sales strategies, and not enough time working on perfecting the skills necessary to better serve our customers, says sales consultant Brian Sullivan, president of PRECISE Selling, Kansas City, Mo.
"The term ‘solutions selling’ has become synonymous with the term ‘consultative selling,’ and frankly, both have become cliché in our profession," says Sullivan, who teams up with MDSI (publisher of First Impressions) on the EOL PRECISE Selling online training program. "While selling ‘solutions’ makes us all feel ‘high level,’ those solutions are only effective if they have a ton of purchase orders attached to them and a happy customer receiving it. So perhaps it’s time for all of us to get over the semantics." Sullivan made his comments when asked by FI to discuss the need for solutions selling in today’s market, and the training associated with it.
"I was speaking to the VP of sales of a medical company recently, and when I asked him what he hoped to accomplish through sales training, he told me he wanted his people to stop being ‘salespeople’ and start being ‘solutions consultants,’" he says. "I had heard this from countless sales leaders before, and immediately asked him, ‘What does that mean?’ Like the others, he had a tough time articulating the meaning. My advice to him was, he needed to identify the specific skills his people needed to do better, coach them on how to improve those skills, and then make it repeatable through practice. Then call it whatever the heck he wanted!"
It doesn’t matter what you call yourself - solution salesperson or product salesperson, says Sullivan. "It’s not about how we identify or call ourselves, or even the sales system we use. It’s about how the customer perceives and identifies us."
To create long-term customers, salespeople need the following things, he says:
- Attitude, enthusiasm and creativity.
- "PIC" (product, industry and competitive) knowledge.
- A repeatable, measurable and sustainable sales process.
"Their attitude and enthusiasm will get them noticed, their knowledge will make them irreplaceable, and their sales process will make them a consistent top performer," says Sullivan. Such things can - and must - be taught, he says. In fact, they must become part of every sales meeting and team conference call. "It needs to become embedded in the culture of the company."
Online training can and should play a role in the education of salespeople, says Sullivan. "But it’s important to understand that online training is only one component of the learning process. Salespeople have to actually use the knowledge and skill that was taught. And by doing so, they will sell a lot more ‘solutions.’ Oh, and did I mention a few more ‘products’ as well?"
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