The Importance of Having an Empty Cup

There’s a Zen story about a man who went to visit a master and learn his wisdom. The pilgrim began asking questions while the master poured the tea.

He continued pouring into his visitor’s cup until it overflowed. Tea began spilling everywhere, and still the master continued to pour.

The wisdom-seeker was dumbfounded. “Master, can you not see that the cup is full?” he demanded.

The master replied, “So is your mind. You have so many ideas of your own that there is no room for my answers. Go away and come back when you have emptied your cup. Then maybe you will learn something.”

Is Your Cup Empty?

As sales professionals, we know that one of the best ways to build rapport with and demonstrate interest in the customer is to ask questions. The questioning process is supposed to help us get information about the customer’s situation so that we can make a good recommendation for an appropriate product or service to meet their needs. (Whether our sales process refers to it as discovery, needs analysis, fact-finding, or some other term, it’s there. We all know we’re supposed to ask questions.)

What sometimes proves more difficult – even, and perhaps especially, for experienced salespeople – is avoiding leading the witness. Often we go into the customer interaction with preconceived ideas about their situation, and even with an offering already in mind.

What tends to happen as a result is that we build our questioning strategy around our assumptions. We think we already know what the prospect’s issues are, what their reasons for buying are, and – worst of all – which of our products or services we want them to buy.

This is the point at which we must remember that we are not supposed to be “pushing” a product on the customer. We need to empty our cup if we’re going to learn anything useful!

Why Not a Full Cup?

If we let our own answer come before we even start asking questions, the customer is not going to feel fully heard or understood. Our rapport will suffer, and we become far less likely to close the sale.

We may think we know what is going on in the customer’s world, but the fact is that they are going to buy for their own reasons – not for our reasons!

Let’s look at some guidelines for avoiding this trap.

1. Focus on the customer first. Asking open-ended questions about their current business situation, their problems, and their reasons for meeting with you will provide some real insight into what their actual motivations and underlying needs are.
2. Draw on experience. If we have worked with other customers who are similarly positioned, we can bring up some of their issues and ask the customer whether they have comparable challenges. The key here is to ask rather than assuming!
3. Verify findings. When we think we have identified the customer’s need – based on their answers and their assessment of the situation – we should make it explicit. We need to confirm with the customer that we understand their position correctly. Then we can dig deeper into the issue to find the root causes contributing to the problem.
4. Discuss customer goals. What is the customer actually hoping to accomplish? This is very important to discover, because if we get out of step with the customer’s primary goals and concerns, we aren’t selling to them – we’re selling to our assumptions. We should find out their priorities, talk about risks, and get them to visualize what a good solution would look like in practice.
5. Put the product last. We should not start talking about options, features, benefits, price, or anything else having to do with the product or service offering until after we have uncovered, verified, and discussed in depth the customer’s problems, needs, and goals.

As sales professionals, our goal should always be to benefit the customer and to work with them in a consultative way to meet their most pressing business needs.

In the process, it’s critical to avoid pushing our own agenda. The customer’s perspective trumps ours – however much we may know about our offerings, they are the ones who know their business best.

We should always let the question come before the answer – giving the customer the opportunity to provide insight and perspective, rather than basing our approach on what we think we already know.

Baker Communications offers leading-edge sales training solutions for sales makers and sales managers that will help you address the goals and achieve the outcomes addressed in this article. For more information about how your organization can achieve immediate and lasting behavior change that will uncover new opportunities, drive revenue, and boost your bottom line, click here.