52 - How to Succeed in Construction Sales, Even if You Hate Selling (Part 3 of 3)

Welcome again to the Construction Genius podcast. This is episode three of our three-part series on how to succeed in construction sales even if you hate selling. Today's episode will introduce you to a questioning framework that you can use when negotiating new opportunities.  And just one more shout out, if you or anyone who reports to you are responsible for sales you might find the construction sales assessment that I put together extremely useful. Head out to my website at https://ericanderton.com/constructionsales. Download the assessment, fill it out, and also take the exercise that's included with the assessment and it'll help you to focus on and strengthen the five traits that successful salespeople in any field consistently display. For detailed show notes on this episode, visit my blog at https://ericanderton.com/blog. If you'd like to reach out to me on social media, I'm on LinkedIn and Twitter. And on my Youtube channel, you'll find a complete library of insights on life, business, and leadership that I've published over the years. Here are the episode highlights: [01:08] Thinking of sales like a scale - you want the pros of doing business with you to outweigh the cons. [02:30] People only ever buy for 2 reasons, to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. And in construction, they only buy to avoid pain. [04:27] S.P.I.N selling - situation, problem, implication, and need payoff. [05:27] If you're going to be successful in sales it won't be by the power of your charisma or the shine on your shoes. It'll be by the quality of the questions that you ask. [06:34] When dealing with a savvy construction buyer, don't ask too many situational questions. Do your research beforehand so you can focus on uncovering their problem. [08:46] Implication questions are sad questions. When you find a problem, one of your jobs is to magnify it. Not because you're a sadist, but because you need to demonstrate to them the cost of not solving the problem. [09:49] Need payoff questions are the happy questions and they're about value and importance and usefulness. So a question like this, "What would it mean to you if we could deliver a project that has zero rework?" [12:00] "A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week." - George Patton