The role of the Therapist in sales is to understand and resolve the buyer’s fears. Here is the Therapist’s Four Step Treatment Process to help the customer work through the fear of buying:
1. Be sensitive and observe
2. Explore concerns
3. Empathize with feelings
4. Discuss alternatives
You cannot resolve a buyer’s fear until you understand the source. Therefore, exploring the buyer’s concerns is the first step. “Tell me more about that.” “Why do you feel that way?”
“Can you elaborate?” These are good statements along the line of exploration.
Like a Therapist, you can guess out loud to try and bring information to the table. “I sense you are concerned about the reliability of the technology.” “Are you concerned about our ability to support you technically?”
Note that the first concern verbalized by a customer is usually a smoke-screen. You have to dig deeper to get to the real issues in sales. Keep asking open ended questions until the real concern emerges.
