Why People Buy
People buy to fulfill a want or need. A customer might buy a new bed because they want to reduce back pain and get a good night’s sleep. A company might purchase project management software because they need to collaborate and communicate effectively across a remote team.
That’s why, at its most basic level, sales is about identifying and addressing potential buyers’ needs. The most successful salespeople aren’t smooth talkers—they’re savvy listeners. They ask questions to solicit a potential buyer’s unique motivations, aspirations, and challenges.
In this lesson, you will learn questions and listening techniques that will help you deeply understand potential buyers’ needs. Not only will you close more sales, but you’ll also develop better relationships and make contacts feel supported and heard.
In this video, explore questions and active listening techniques to understand potential buyers’ needs more deeply.
What Are Sales “Needs”?
A potential buyer’s needs are the reasons they’re searching for a solution in the first place. For example, a startup may seek a messaging platform because it needs to engage and support customers in real-time. Or, an individual may shop for a new suit because they want to appear confident and professional in a job interview. Needs often revolve around:
- Problems or outcomes. A potential buyer may need to solve a problem or deliver a specific outcome (such as bridging a knowledge gap or reducing the amount of time it takes to do something).
- Requirements. Leads may have particular requirements for a solution (such as long battery life).
- Wants and emotions. Finally, people may buy to fulfill a personal desire or emotional need. For example, they may want to look good in front of their boss, express their personality, or project a certain image or social status.
- In short, sales needs encompass nearly any requirement or criteria for making a purchase.
Why Is It Important to Understand Potential Buyers’ Needs?
Understanding potential buyers’ needs empowers you to develop better relationships—which can ultimately help you close more sales. How? First, you’ll be able to recommend the products and services that best meet the potential buyer’s needs. That means happier customers and lower return or churn rates. Second, you can focus your communications on what’s most important to the potential buyer. That means a more personalised and compelling sales pitch. Finally, you can avoid wasting your—or the potential buyer’s—time discussing solutions or features that don’t align. That means a more efficient sales cycle.
Understanding potential buyers’ needs is key to unlocking a sale. Once you know a potential buyer’s deeper motivations and requirements, you can communicate how your solution fulfils them.
Ask Probing Questions
So, what’s the best way to determine a potential buyer’s needs? Ask them directly. Open-ended questions will get a potential customer thinking and talking about their challenges, priorities, and objectives.
Expand the rows below to see examples of probing questions that solicit a company’s or individual’s needs.
Starter Questions
When first contacting a potential buyer, it helps to kick off with some general starter questions. For example:
- “Can you tell me a little bit about your situation?”
- “How will you use this product/service?”
- “What brings you here?”
- “What attracted you to our solution?”
Questions About Problems, Issues, or Challenges
You might think of a sales need as the problem, issue, or challenge a potential buyer is trying to solve. For example, you might ask:
- “Can you tell me about the present problem?”
- “What’s your current process?”
- “What issues or challenges are you facing?”
- “How is your current solution working—or not working?”
- “What bothers you about this situation?”
- “What’s the broader impact of this issue/problem/challenge on your organisation?”
- “What have you tried so far?”
- “What’s prevented you from addressing this issue in the past?”
Questions About Priorities, Requirements, and Objectives
Inquiring about potential buyers’ priorities, requirements, and objectives will help you tailor your offerings. Ask questions like:
- “What are your priorities in making this purchase?”
- “Who will use this product/service?”
- “What’s most important to you?”
- “What are your key requirements or objectives?”
- “Why is X important to you?”
- “What would you like to see happen?”
- “What’s your desired outcome?”
Questions to Seek Clarification
Finally, a potential buyer may say something that causes you to pause and seek clarification. In these cases, you might ask:
- “Can you give me an example?”
- “Can you expand on that?”
- “What do you mean by X?”
- “Can you talk a little more about … ?”
- “This is what I hear from you. Is that accurate?”
5 Tips for Active Listening
You can get potential buyers talking about their needs with countless question variations. But the wording matters less than the sentiment: Express genuine interest in the individual’s situation and struggles—and truly listen to what they’re saying. Improve your listening skills with the help of these five tips:
- Give your undivided attention. If you’re meeting in person, face the other person, look them in the eye, and set aside distractions—including your cell phone. Minimising interference is doubly important for calls or video conferences since reading body language is difficult or even impossible.
- Be present. Don’t worry about what you’ll say next or how you’re going to respond to the potential buyer. Allow yourself to focus on what they’re saying.
- Don’t interrupt, rush, or speak for the other person. Let the potential buyer answer your questions without interruption. Don’t finish their sentence or rush them. Let them describe their needs in their own words.
- Paraphrase and repeat the potential buyer’s needs back to them. Repeating a potential buyer’s needs will make them feel heard—and provide an opportunity to identify and correct misunderstandings. For example, you might say, “It sounds like you’re looking for a solution that does X, Y, and Z. Is that correct? Am I missing anything?”
- Tailor your recommendations. Finally, let the potential buyer’s needs steer your conversation moving forward. Don’t give a generic sales spiel. Instead, tailor your recommendations to the individual’s or company’s needs, and position your product or service as a relevant solution.
Summary
The best salespeople focus on solving a potential buyer’s problem or fulfilling a need. To do that, you must first uncover and understand that problem or need. Never assume that you know what’s important to a potential buyer. Instead, ask probing questions and let the individual explain their criteria and challenges in their own words. Give the potential buyer your undivided attention, and confirm your understanding before moving forward in the sales pipeline. Finally, tailor your communications to address the individual’s or company’s unique goals and concerns.
- Ask why. Sometimes a potential buyer may struggle to communicate the root of their needs. For example, they might say they have a specific requirement (such as a five-star user rating)—which is actually the symptom of a deeper underlying need (dependability). In these cases, it helps to ask, “Why?” For example, “Why is a five-star user rating important to you?”
Click on “Check your Understanding” to answer the questions about this lesson. You’re ready to learn about the seven essential things you need to know about buyers in the Next lesson.