Instead, she asked a really smart question, she said, “Have you ever had your gait checked?” I said, “My what? What are you talking about?” Moments later, I was on a treadmill with a camera. She showed me the tape and it turns out my feet are pronated.
She said, “You know if you run that marathon with pronated feet and those sneakers, you’re gonna hurt yourself.” The last thing I want to do is hurt myself so I bought a $150 pair of sneakers. She showed me why I needed to make a change. When I walked in, I had no reason to buy anything because I already had a brand-new pair of sneakers. But she uncovered a problem I wasn’t aware of, educated me on the impact, and I made the decision to buy to avoid that problem.
Great salespeople don’t just ask about problems, they help you find problems that you didn’t know about. So, you need to understand your product or service and the problems it solves—not the list of benefits written in marketing lingo but the real problems.
(From All Sales Start with a Problem by Josh Braun in the book Sales Secrets: The World’s Top Salespeople Share Their Secrets to Success)