“Don’t start your presentation until the customer agrees to buy,” says Ray Leone. WOW. That’s power if you can pull it off.

“The sale is made before the presentation begins if you ask the right questions to qualify and interest the buyer to a point of commitment,” he says. Ray Leone uses strategies that gets the customer to commit to buy before the actual presentation starts.

The right questions create deficit in the comfort level of the prospect. Most salespeople want their customer to feel more comfort and more knowledge. “Wrong!” says Leone. The more the customer knows the less he or she needs you. Price becomes an issue when the customer thinks he know it all. Ray Leone is to asking questions as Mohammed Ali is to boxing the greatest.

Leone’s sale is broken down into three parts:

Part one…Research Gathering information and positioning for the sale.

Ask power questions.

Become the emotional twin of the prospect.

Determine the prospect’s personality style.

Uncovering the prospect’s dominant buying motive (the emotional reason the prospect wants your product) and;

Finding what the prospect’s primary objection will be.

At this point, it’s important that the customer agrees to buy. If not you don’t begin to present. Leone uses a technique called the WITY to do this. If you want to know what the WITY is (some salespeople call it a license to steal) you must attend his Leone’s seminar or buy his book.

Part Two…Education What everyone else considers the presentation. This is where you bring focus and credibility to the disparity you created in the research phase. This is where you validate and prove what you said in the research phase, and separate yourself from the competition.

Part Three…Dream fulfillment The customer takes mental possession (in a car this is the test drive) where the close is done. The purpose is to raise the emotional level before you ask for the final commitment. Don’t just ask people to buy ask them to fulfill their own dominant buying motive (which you determined in the research phase).

When Leone first got into sales, his boss handed him a swimming pool brochure and said, “Sell me this pool.”

“Do you like this pool?” Leone queried. “Yes,” the boss said. “Would you like to have one in your back yard?” asked Leone. “Yes,” said the boss. “Great, when can we start?” His boss went wild. He thought Leone was great. The truth is the boss couldn’t have known the half of it.

Leone prides himself on asking powerful questions that creates a deficit (need) on the part of a buyer, that is fulfilled by making the sale. For example, when talking to a CEO Leone asks, “How many semesters of leadership training has your management team had?” The usual answer is “none.” Then follows with “In other words you’re telling me that the people you depend on for the success of your company have actually had no formal training in the most important function they perform? (and now he lays them wide open) Would you have a surgeon perform brain surgery without any formal training?

Creating the deficit means asking pointed questions. It also means getting the prospect to think and respond in new ways. It puts the prospect in a situation where he needs, depends on, and has trust in the knowledge of the salesperson based on the questions he has been asked.

Ray’s premise is that most other sales presentations are 90% product knowledge and presentation the rest is objections and close no time is spent in the research phase where the sale is actually made!

Ray’s perfect sales presentation is one where you eliminate objections before they occur. By asking questions that lead to a commitment before you present you can overcome any objection during the presentation. This makes the entire sale nonconfrontational.

Ray challenges you to review your own process and makes you justify the steps you take to get to a sale. He claims he can get the prospect to buy before the presentation is made. The audience may not believe it at first but when Leone completes his seminar he has another group of disciples.

Why save room for dessert when you can eat it first? No reason I know of.

FREE GitBit… For an outline of Ray Leone’s powerful Sales Funnel and how it works Just go to www.gitomer.com click FREE STUFF then click GitBit register and enter the secret word, “FUNNEL.

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, and Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless. President of Charlottebased Buy Gitomer, he gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts training programs on selling and customer service. He can be reached at 704/3331112 or email to salesman@gitomer.com

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permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer 704/3331112