Selling is aligning the benefits of your product, service or idea with the needs or desires of your potential buyer. It's a natural progression of uncovering your buyer's needs and then dialoging about how what you're representing can help fill those needs.

So how do you go about finding your prospect's needs? In the world of selling, the tactic that describes uncovering the desires and "hot buttons" of your propect is called "probing."

Probing is the art of gently leading your sales discussion down a path of unearthing what it is that will be of value to your prospect. It's an art because sometimes people you'll meet do not feel they need to open up to you. Afterall, they may decide in their mind, "I'm the customer" and you're the salesperson, you're the one who has to figure out how to sell me. They don't have to tell you anything. Generally, most people are not that way. However, the way you go about asking can be more effective if you probe with open ended questions.

Open ended questions will allow your prospective client to open up to you because they are the "why," "what," "how" and "when" questions and they offer others the space to elaborate on their wishes. As the prospects open up, you are writing down, with their permission, what you know you're product or service has that meets their needs. You're not discussing it yet. That will come during the presentation portion of the sale and that's next. At this time, what's important is that you are aligning in your mind how your service,product or idea is going to meet the need or desire that you've now uncovered.

So, if you're selling products like real estate, you might say "what are you looking for in your ideal home?" If you're selling yourself for a potential new employer you could ask "what are some of the qualities you're looking for in the ideal candidate for this position?" "How will you know when you've found that person?" "Why has this position become available at this time?"

Finding the need is such a critical part of the sales process that unless it's done thoroughly, you really may not have a solid sale occur and worse, you may make a sale that will cancel down the line because your buyer was not convinced what they bought from you benefitted them. They need to see the logic in their decision. When you're selling, it's your responsibility to help the customer identify their areas of missed opportunity.

A strong needs analysis will engage your prospect and create the stage to present your product or service and how it will fill those needs perfectly. After the sale, your customer will feel like it was their good decision to buy from you and they'll have no remorse.

What are your prospects needs and desires? Learn about them and see how you can help them with them!