Yes, I almost agree with you – but you know even in retail, which I should add, is not my area of specialisation, a few brief questions at the front end can produce remarkable results.

A few years ago, a friend of mine who owns a chain of sports shops/gyms challenged me to increase his profit margin within thirty days. I have never been able to walk away froma challenge, so…

The first thing I did was to spend a few hours observing his staff, their approach, the language they used and their general enthusiasm.

Then I took them out of that environment into the classroom for a half day’s workshop and here are some of the things we changed:

They learnt to smile easily
Their approach became non-threatening
They used positive language
They began to understand empathy and how to develop rapport

But most of all, they learnt how to qualify..

“Can I help you at all?” – Closed question – became “Good morning sir/madam, what are you looking to purchase today?”

Followed by: “How much would you like to spend?” – Budget

Followed by: “These are the options in your price range, which will adequately meet your requirements, however if you are prepared to stretch your budget a little, this is the top of the range option” – Selling Up and appealing to pride.

Followed by: “You may also want to consider these which most of our customers purchase to go with those” – Selling across the line

Finally, after purchase: “I’d like to thank you for shopping with us today, and here is a small gift to express our gratitude” – High value but very low cost giveaway, to garner loyalty.

I won my bet!!

Best

Jonathan

Additionally, in a few unique arenas (often B2C) where the “time cost per sale” is low and/or the “enquiry levels” are low, or the “value to time required” is high then qualification becomes unecessary or even detrimental. Qualification becomes increasingly important as the “time cost per sale” or “level of enquiries” is high, and this is true for the majority of sales environments.

Any sales environments must have some guidelines about the level of qualification the maximises sales efficiency, bearing in mind that in some rare cases there can be next to none!