Rushing to Judgment

As a salesperson, you should work to focus all of your attention on your customer and his/her needs. It's all too easy to swoop in to present a solution instead of listening to your customer's complaints and the specifics of his/her situation.

In this rush to cut to the chase, you're in danger of coming across as arrogant, and your customers end up feeling their input is unimportant and unappreciated. This understandable mistake happens for two reasons:

* You want to come off as the "expert" or "hero," showing off all your knowledge by providing the solution before your customer even has a chance to finish her thought.
* You're in a hurry and don't have the time and energy to devote to your customer.

For example, let's say you're about to leave for a week's vacation when a prospective customer calls. He starts to go into a long story about his business and all the problems he's encountered in the last five years. You realize that you have heard his story -- or at least a similar one -- many times before, so you interrupt him to give your answer to his problems. You try to end the call as soon as possible so you can leave for vacation.

In this case, even though you might have given your prospect a good solution, chances are he won't feel satisfied with the conversation. He didn't have an opportunity to tell you about his business, so he feels shortchanged.

What should you have done? Next time, embrace any information your prospect gives you, whether you believe it's valuable or not. If you truly didn't have time to talk at length with this prospect, you should have requested the opportunity to call him back after you returned from vacation. Otherwise, you should have put down your briefcase, closed your office door, and listened to him for as long as he needed.

Remember, even if you hear the story all the time, it is unique and personal for each customer. Instead of interrupting your customer with your standard solution, let him have the floor and explain his problem. Only then can you proceed with the process of finding a solution for whatever ails him.