Ask not what you can do for the customer, but what the customer expects of you. That's the message from Martin Baines as he examines the reasons why prospective buyers may change their minds at the point where a sale seems a near certainty. M ost salespeople must have gone through the same frustrating experience: "I really felt that we looked after that customer well. We built up a good rapport and seemed to tick all the boxes on the prospective purchase. Yet they walked away. Why? What did we miss?" But instead of asking "What do we have to do to close a deal?" perhaps the questions should be "What does the customer have to do in order to buy?" and "What do we have to do to get them to do those things?"
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