How Are Your Communication Skills; A Must for Successful Marketing?



Posted: Thursday, September 10, 2009

by Gretchen Parks
http://www.GretchenParks.com

All the learning tools in the world will not help you if you have no idea what to say to a prospect when you get them on the phone or speak to them in person. How well you communicate to them is the most important skill you can learn; even more important than how many Twitter followers you have or Facebook friends you have collected.

Most of the time people are not going to contact you ready to sign up to buy whatever you are offering. You will have to communicate with them to find out what they are looking for, if they have a problem you can solve, and then offer your solution if you can help them. There are three important phases of communication you will need to progress through with every conversation to move your prospect from interested to sold.

1. The Connection Phase consists of questions you ask to find basic information about the person you are speaking with. What do you do? Tell me about your family? What are you looking for? Why have you contacted me? Didn't we go to high school together? These are examples of connection questions to break the ice and get to know each other. Then you move into phase two.

2. The Discovery Phase consists of deeper questions that get to the root of why your prospect is looking for whatever it is they said they wanted. This phase uncovers the deeper emotional reasons why a person would be willing to buy what you have to offer so that you can tie your product/service or business opportunity back to these reasons when you present your solution in the next phase.

3. The Solution Phase wraps up your conversation by offering your prospect your business opportunity or products/service to solve for them the problem and emotional issue they mentioned in the previous phase of conversation.

Really listening and allowing another person to talk makes your prospect feel valued while helping them to discover what they want and why. In essence, they convince themselves through the course of the conversation that they need your solution before you even bring it up. They look to you as a valuable, trusted source because you have treated them with such respect that they will be open to any solution you offer. The key is not to rush into your solution too soon.

If you move slowly and allow the prospect time to talk it out by asking pointed questions to get to the heart of how they feel, you will be rewarded eagerly by your prospect.

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