infinite42

Are you good at asking questions? Are you a good listener? I’ve worked in sales for a few years now and one of my favorite tips is “stop pitching and start listening”. Put simply, this just means that you need to stop talking to customers about your products and start listening to their problems and issues. People don’t like to be pitched. Ask them some questions. If you ask them the right questions they will tell you what they need and hopefully tell you why you product will work for them.

In order to do this successfully you’ve got to create some open space where your customer can give you some feedback.

Of course there is a problem here with your typical website. Most websites are set up to pitch (i.e. present) a product, or an idea. This is a one way conversation from the website owner (you) to the customers. Without this valuable feedback from your customers how do you know what they are looking for? How do you know if your product works for them?

The challenge here is to start getting feedback via your website. Your web measurement tool will give you some information on where your visitors come from, what they are searching for, and how they navigate around your site. This is a good first step. To go further you need to start engaging direct with visitors via online surveys or email questionnaires.

Talk to your web designer about this. Ask them how they can help you to start listening to your customers.

If they can’t then you’ll just carry on pitching…

Tags: Conversation, feedback, listen, pitch

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