{"id":8516,"date":"2015-12-06T05:52:56","date_gmt":"2015-12-06T13:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessenglishpod.com\/?p=8516"},"modified":"2022-12-28T09:54:54","modified_gmt":"2022-12-28T17:54:54","slug":"bep-280-english-for-sales-process-2-understanding-customer-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/9to5english.com\/wordpress\/2015\/12\/06\/bep-280-english-for-sales-process-2-understanding-customer-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"BEP 280 &#8211; Sales English 2: Understanding Customer Needs"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-8516-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/bizpod\/BEP280-Sales-Process2.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/bizpod\/BEP280-Sales-Process2.mp3\">https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/bizpod\/BEP280-Sales-Process2.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p><a title=\"BEP 280 - English for Sales (Part 2)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessenglishpod.com\/learningcenter\/Premium2008\/quiz\/BEP280POD\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.businessenglishpod.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Business-English-Pod-280-Sales-Process2-600x258.png\" alt=\"Business-English-Pod-280-Sales-Process 2\" width=\"600\" height=\"258\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-8489\" srcset=\"https:\/\/9to5english.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Business-English-Pod-280-Sales-Process2-600x258.png 600w, https:\/\/9to5english.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Business-English-Pod-280-Sales-Process2-300x129.png 300w, https:\/\/9to5english.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/Business-English-Pod-280-Sales-Process2.png 788w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Welcome back to Business English Pod for today&#8217;s lesson on understanding your customer&#8217;s needs in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessenglishpod.com\/category\/sales\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sales process<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>As a salesperson, you can&#8217;t just walk up to a customer and start pitching your products. How do you know the customer actually needs your products? And why would the customer buy from you without knowing anything about you? No, the sales process doesn&#8217;t start with a pitch. It starts with making your initial approach and getting to know your customers, which is what we looked at in our last lesson. <\/p>\n<p>So what come&#8217;s next? Well, once you&#8217;ve made your initial approach, you can move on to understanding the customer&#8217;s needs. And that&#8217;s what we&#8217;ll focus on in this lesson, because if you understand what the customer needs, then you can offer them the right solutions. <\/p>\n<p>What are the techniques we can use to learn about a customer&#8217;s needs? Well, today we&#8217;ll cover several, including how to ask direct questions, present alternatives, and ask about priorities. We&#8217;ll also look at proposing the next step and asking about buying authority. Once you&#8217;ve done these things, you can move on confidently to matching your solutions to their needs. <\/p>\n<p>In today&#8217;s dialog, we&#8217;ll rejoin Aaron, a salesperson with a commercial refrigeration company. He&#8217;s talking to a couple of potential customers at a new hotel: Eva, the hotel manager, and Robin, the head chef. Eva and Robin have just given Aaron a tour of the hotel&#8217;s restaurant, bar, and caf\u00c3\u00a9. Aaron has learned a bit about their plans and now he wants to know more about their specific needs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Listening Questions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1.\tWhich area of the hotel does Aaron present an alternative option for?<br \/>\n2.\tWhat are Eva and Robin&#8217;s two major priorities?<br \/>\n3.\tWhat does Aaron say he is going to do next?<\/p>\n<p>[tp no_translate=&#8221;y&#8221;]<strong>Premium Members: <a href=\"https:\/\/businessenglishpod.com\/learningcenter\/Premium2008\/quiz\/BEP280SN-Sales-Process2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Study Notes<\/span><\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/businessenglishpod.com\/learningcenter\/Premium2008\/quiz\/BEP280QIZ\/presentation.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Online Practice<\/span><\/a> | <a href=\"\/learningcenter\/Premium2008\/quiz\/BEP280PC.mp3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">PhraseCast<\/span><\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/businessenglishpod.com\/learningcenter\/Premium2008\/quiz\/BEP280QIZ\/presentation_html5.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mobile Quizzes<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Download: <a href=\"https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/bizpod\/BEP280-Sales-Process2.mp3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Podcast MP3<\/a><\/strong>[\/tp]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Learn Business English for understanding your customer&#8217;s needs in the sales process, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":"","powered_cache_disable_cache":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[45,27],"tags":[179,108,225],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/9to5english.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/9to5english.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/9to5english.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/9to5english.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/9to5english.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8516"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/9to5english.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19082,"href":"https:\/\/9to5english.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8516\/revisions\/19082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/9to5english.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/9to5english.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/9to5english.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}