Managing Director Nina Sunday says the sales process should start with seeing everything from the other person's angle

Do you really know what your prospects want and need? Being passionate about the interaction will boost your sales.As a managing director, Nina Sunday is an experienced specialist in direct selling. Her wise approach helps sellers truly interact with their prospects and find out how to close the sale successfully based on prospects' needs.She thought of a set of structured questions that leads people down the path of purchasing products or services. Emphasizing 'the pain of not taking action' and 'demonstrating return on investment' will seal the deal.'Start with the person in mind that you're communicating with'. Nina explains how focusing on the prospects will not only help you understand them, but it will also significantly improve your outcome as a seller.Nina says that you can convert prospects into customers even if they are very reluctant at first. Create a story and show how you can improve their life.Want to skyrocket your sales?Explore fascinating interviews with world-renowned guests. Share it with your friends and spread the passion.Live PassionatelyMoustafa HamwiPassionpreneur & Chief Energy OfficerAward Winning Author & Speaker

TRANSCRIPT:

Moustafa: Hello everyone and welcome back to Passion Sundays, the best way to end a week and start another! Our guest today has an interesting twist on sales: question-based selling. She is a specialist who loves what she does. Nina Sunday, thank you very much for being here!Nina: Lovely to meet you, Moustafa!Moustafa: So tell me more! How did you end up trying to sell by asking questions rather than by selling?Nina: Well, I noticed that when I go into a pitch and spend a lot of time with them listening and me talking that I didn't really, I couldn't really calibrate whether they were interested, whether there were buying signals unless I actually switched it around and asked lots of questions. And I would find through not selling and I would look back and reflect and go 'Well, how did that interaction go?' and the penny dropped when I realized with that one particular client where I thought I've gone really well with my pitch, I went 'That guy hardly talked at all'. I hardly asked a question what his needs were, what he wanted us to do for him. So that got me on the road to doing what I call a diagnostic, which is lots of structured questions to draw out what the prospect wants or needs. But also to lead them down the path where I use lots of words like 'Do you ever find it frustrating that…? Or do you ever get confused by…?' so a few pain words added in there to try to emphasize the pain of not taking action and maybe demonstrating return on investment.Moustafa: So what I'm interested in it's to understand how to use this question-based selling to be able to sell my passion to either my boss or to investors or to anybody out there to support me.Nina: Well, I think you have to start with the person in mind that you're communicating with and seeing it from their angle. So you ask questions about 'Have you ever experienced?'. If you start with 'Have you…?', I think of words like 'Do you ever feel frustrated by?' or 'Have you ever wondered?', whatever is the angle that you're going to take. And I think it also helps if you think ahead of time, maybe craft some questions and write them down. Not to learn by wrote, because it's not good to learn by wrote but it primes your brain to be prepared so the questions come out in that format. So for example when I'm doing an exercise with a sales team… I walk around a place called Luna Park in Melbourne and there were lots of statements saying 'Take a photo home from riding on the ghost train' and I took lots of photos of where there were offers to buy something. And what I do is I project those and I say ok, turn that into a question: 'Would you like to take home a photo from the ghost train? Have you got a special event like a party coming up?' instead of all these statements, all these signs with statements. So I get them to think ok, if you've got any statement about your product or service, turn it into a question.Moustafa: Mhm.Nina: If we could change the way we could… if we could save you costs in relation to your marketing, would that be of any value to you?Moustafa: So let's say I would come to you and say 'If I could make you more passionate about every day…'?Nina: Oh yes! So don't assume that people want to be passionate. Would you like to be more passionate about your life?Moustafa: Ok, I see, that surely gets the buy-in.Nina: That's right!Moustafa: How can we use this technique to deal with objections and challenges? Because we go through tough things in life.Nina: Mhm.Moustafa: And it would be very useful to use such systems and techniques to help us get through the tough times, not only the good times.Nina: Of course, it depends on the objection. But whatever they come up with, it's just turning it around into thinking it in terms of a question. Can you give me an example of an objection?Moustafa: I don't think your passion can help me. I think I gave up. My company is never going to be passionate.Nina: When I hear that, I feel that I've switched back into the negotiation techniques that I've learned. It's a very classic one called 'Feel, felt, found' where it's kinda creating an anecdote. You say 'I hear what you say. Many of my clients have felt like that in the past but when they did take a step forward, they found that they made a difference to their bottom-line results and so in future I find that most people decide to actually give it a go. Feel, felt, found is actually a template, a structure for turning an objection into 'This is what some clients have felt in the past. Then they made the shift and this is what they found in the future.Moustafa: So you kind of hand-hold them from whatever they are stuck. That's very smooth. So you go from 'Would you like to be more passionate? No, I gave up. That is never going to be, my company hates it'. Of course, a lot of people feel that but some people look into it and consider it. Those who did, went like that and naturally ushered them in…Nina: That's right! That's the whole party referral. You're starting with the phrase 'some people', 'many people' and it's people kinda like to belong to a group. So if you give them an anecdote of what some people experience that were just like them, so they feel accepted, they are not strange for feeling that way. But then they took the step and then they found that it improved their life.Moustafa: Awesome!Nina: That kind of creates a model or an anecdote that they relate to.Moustafa: I love it! Thank you very much for these amazing techniques that would help us sell more passion to the world!Nina: A pleasure!Moustafa: A pleasure!Nina: Thank you very much! I appreciate it! My pleasure!Moustafa and Nina: Passion!Moustafa: What do you think? I hope you found this episode useful to help you sell your passion to the world. If so, share your comments on the blog below and share it with your friends. And if you'd like more tools, tips, techniques and exclusive interviews that I only share on my website, go to Moustafa.com. Until the next episode – live passionately!