By Todd Duncan

To master selling, you must be in the solution business. You should be on a constant pursuit to uncover both your strategic partners’ and borrowers’ needs for which you can develop solutions.

Selling Myths to Dismiss

Since the earlier twenties, many sales trainers have taught four specific strategies that are supposed to increase sales. The truth is that, more often than not, using these techniques will hinder your sales, if not prevent them entirely. As you review these strategies, you’ll notice how none of them are focused on creating solutions for the needs of your clients.

Selling Myth #1

Open-Ended Questions Are More Effective Than Close Ended Questions: Generally speaking, close-ended questions can be answered with a single yes or no and little explanation, whereas open-ended questions elicit more information from the client.

The fact of the matter is different sales situations require different types of questions, and to be effective you cannot resolve yourself to one form of questioning. Remember that your goal is to learn your prospects’ needs and values, and sometimes this means you have to be very focused and specific by asking direct questions to ascertain specific answers. By focusing more on learning about the prospect instead of what type of question to ask, you will end up asking the questions that are most appropriate.

Selling Myth #2

You Must Demonstrate Strong Product Knowledge: It’s good to know all the ins and outs of your product or service, and there is a right time and place to offer that information. But the fact is if buyers don’t trust you or perceive that they stand to receive enough value from using you, product knowledge means little.

As the Law of the Courtship says, it doesn’t matter how much you can tell a person about your product or service if you haven’t first determined whether your product or service truly meets the person’s needs and values. If you are just “blowing smoke,” you will quickly turn your prospects off.

Selling Myth #3

Features Close More Sales: Telling a prospect about the “wonderful” features of your product is not an alluring sales technique. The bottom line is that most buyers don’t care about features until they know you care about them.

This doesn’t mean you should be ignorant about your products’ capabilities and features, but you must dismiss the notion that people are thrilled to hear about all the “stuff” that a loan can do. The stuff doesn’t matter if it doesn’t in some way touch the prospect’s needs and values.

Selling Myth #4

Always Be Closing: Most sales training teaches that you should constantly rotate a variety of closing techniques at different stages of the selling process. You must understand that this is not the way to be a highly effective and successful originator. First, these techniques take your attention away from listening to your prospects’ needs and values. Second, the closing of a sale, if it’s done correctly, should never have to be forced or feel like a role of the dice.

Closing a sale should happen naturally because what is offered is highly captivating. The truth is that prospects actually close their own sales if you offer valuable solutions to their real needs and values.

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