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We’ve all done it. We’ve sold to the wrong person. We end up spending weeks or even months developing a relationship with someone who doesn’t have the authority to buy from us.

I’m going to share two sales tips below that represent very strong techniques for discovering who you should be selling to.

“Powerful…questions in your hip pocket can mean lasering in on the right person…”

Sales Tips - One
There is no better indicator of the future than what? The past, of course. We can take advantage of that morsel of wisdom by applying it to discover who we should be selling to in an organization (i.e., the decision maker).

Ask the following question and you’ll not only identify decision makers but you’ll most likely also get a heap of valuable additional information not related to decision makers.

“How have these items (services, etc.) been purchased in the past?”

Don’t you love that question? Open ended. To the point. Non-threatening. Be ready to take notes when the prospect starts talking. Gold is forthcoming.

Sales Tips - Two
There’s not much that I’ve come to rely on in this world. There is one thing, however, that we can all count on. People’s egos. Keep the next ego-avoiding question in your arsenal in order to discover who the decision makers are.

“Besides yourself, who else would be involved in this purchase?”

Another great question. First, if the person you’re talking with has absolutely no buying authority, he or she normally won’t admit it (the ego thing). Go ahead and act like they do anyway. This takes them off the hook and frees them to tell you who really is making the buying decisions.

What you’re hoping for in this instance is for the prospect to say something like, “No one else is involved; I am responsible for buying this item.” If instead the prospect says, “Debbie will have to approve this first” then we know we’re not dealing with the decision maker at this point. It’s time to make an appointment with Debbie.

Sales Blog Wrap-Up
Powerful prepared questions in your hip pocket can mean the difference between months of wasted time selling to the wrong person versus lasering in on the right person and writing an order quickly.

Further reading:

• Is Barack Obama a Lone Decision Maker?
• The Three Stooges can teach us about decision makers
• Decision Makers, Vertical vs. Horizontal

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Tags: customers, Prospecting, prospects

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