In the context of selling, to me “Engagement” means to connect with customers.  To establish a relationship with the customer and agree to various next steps toward mutually agreeable goals.

There is plenty of wisdom and advice out there about the three main segments in the life of an engagement with a customer:  Targeting and making contact to get engaged; deepening the engagement, establishing trust, agreeing to mutual goals, etc.; maintaining the engagement or nurturing the relationship after the “sale”.

Much technology has been introduced in recent years to make the “getting engaged” stage more efficient.  “Attraction marketing”, web search optimization, etc.  Today a smart organization can structure things such that the sales person’s first one to one contact with a prospect comes only when the prospect is ready to get engaged and after they’ve proven themselves “worthy”, in the sense that they’re “qualified”.

Of course, a smart sales organization can also employ social networks to get connected with hard to reach prospects and to perform pre-call research on prospects.  Again, the idea is that when you first get on the phone with the prospect, you know very much about them at a business and personal level.  Ultra-busy executives expect sales people to have already figured out what their company needs from them and why before there’s ever a meeting.  When I was still wet behind the ears and plying my trade in the energy business, I’d spend weeks and weeks talking to engineers, geologists and mid level managers to get the entire picture before meeting with the VP.  Now making all those connections and putting the big picture together takes far less time.

And then we can leverage email marketing, newsletters, online events, etc. to maintain engagement with customers after the sale.

But in my humble opinion, while all this technology can certainly save time and increase “connections”, it will just lead to more “pseudo-relationships” if the sales person does not then take advantage of the opportunity to REALLY engage with the customer.  In other words, we’re using our web based crm software, LinkedIn connections, website offers and conversion forms and other technology to filter through many possible prospects and find the few that are a good match for our companies.  That’s keeping us separated from one to one contact with customers (phone, in person) until we’re confident our investment of one to one time will be profitable.

So, when that phone appointment or in person meeting comes around, we have to work even harder to truly connect with the prospect.  Just having done your research ahead of time isn’t enough either.  After all, that’s expected.  You won’t be seen as unique or special just because you know what you’re talking about.

The word engagement is more commonly used to refer to a commitment marry.  Well, short of a love relationship, we do desire a very close relationship with our customers don’t we?  Don’t worry, this isn’t going to get weird…

I’m just pointing out that the most loyal customers are those that respect you and your company and have a high level of trust in you.  These are things that no amount of technology can create by themselves.

I’m a big fan of the Og Mandino classic, “The Greatest Salesman in the World“.  If you haven’t read it, you’ll be glad you did.  It’s more of a story than a self help book and it’s very brief.  Two qualities I admire in a book!  The theme of The Greatest Salesman in the World is that the person who puts the needs of others before his own will in turn see his needs and dreams fulfilled beyond his wildest dreams.

And that is how I believe you get engaged with customers and stay that way.  You show up ready to help them.  Of course, you should be ready to help through your company’s products and services but, you should be equally, and perhaps a bit more-so, willing to help in non-business related ways.

First, you have to listen and learn what they need.  This is where your research and preparation can help.  Not everyone is willing to open up and share their most painful and pressing needs on the first meeting.  Smart questions based on your research can earn respect and your willingness to listen and show empathy will earn trust.

Then its about closing the deal on respect.  If your conversation has illuminated some what that you can help, then offer it and be sure to over deliver.  This is where it really can be best to find non-business needs of the prospect.  Are they chairing a fund raiser?  You could offer money but, even better to volunteer to help out with the preparations or the event itself.  Is their kid starting to investigate colleges?  Offer to contact your alma mater and arrange a personal tour.

This may sound calculating and certainly could become so.  The real idea is to open your mind and your heart to hearing what each person really wants and needs.  The right way to be there for them will appear.  You’ll know if you’re doing it right.  Just like you know in your first couple of dates if this could be “the one”.  You’ll know that the feeling of genuineness between you is real and that it is invaluable and everlasting.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The K-16 educational experience is comprised of many learning objectives. Unfortunately many of them are not connected to the real world.  As a former educator, adjunct faculty member and sales manager, I personally witnessed the poor listening skills of so many people.

In sales, the lack of active listening skills is a prerequisite for sales failure (inability to increase sales).  With so many salespersons believing that by talking they can “close the sales” with this potential customers (a.k.a. prospects), the opportunities for those who are great communicators are endless. Sales Training Coaching Tip:  If you are telling, you ain’t selling. David Herdlinger)

For example, how often have you said to yourself or heard others say “I thought they said no?” The key word here is thought.  The use of the word is really a presumption on the part of the salesperson.

One time I remember asking one of my sales coaching clients this question “Did your decision maker actually say No?”  The response was “Well, he did not use the No word, but I could tell he was saying no.”

Then I asked the obvious next question “How could you tell?”  Well, the response was “he did not say Yes.” Sales Training Coaching Tip: The word Yes has no emotional marketing value. Consequently, the only person who wants to hear Yes is You.

Great! A potential lost sale because the salesperson was looking for Yes and he did not clarify what was happening within the conversation.  Sales Training Coaching Tip: The word No in sales does not necessarily mean “I do not want to buy your products or services” unless of course your potential client actually tells you “I do not want to buy your products or services.”

How many times does our inability to clarify communication creates potential negative feedback and throw us off our selling game?  Sales Training Coaching Tip:  There is a definite relationship between effective communication, emotional intelligence (EQ) and sales success.

Recently, I gave a presentation on some quick tips to optimize a website so that small business owners would not be taken advantage by Internet marketing experts who are phonies and frauds preying on the lack of knowledge about search engine optimization (SEO).  After the presentation, I sent an email thank you to the group and suggested if they were interested to visit my blog on sales.

I receive the following email from one of the attendees:  “No, Thank You!”  Since this person had personally thanked me on the way out, I was genuinely confused by this response.  For me, the No along with exclamation suggested the opposite of what had transpired several hours earlier.  Instead of taking the No for No, I sent a proactive communication asking for clarification.

She replied with the following “You said ‘thank you’…I replied ‘No, thank You!’ ”   In other words, there was a pregnant pause between the No and the thank you.  Again, this could have been a case of “I thought they said No!”

When salespersons incorporate a proven sales process, this helps to separate the real No’s from the pretend or presumptive No’s.  In some cases, selling is attempted before marketing is completed.  When this happens, a No may mean not now because I do not know you well enough.  Sales Training Coaching Tip: The goal of marketing is two fold:

1. To make a friend
2. To be asked back for that coveted one on one appointment

In the selling phase of the sales process, there are many opportunities to uncover all of the potential Nos. This is called seeking or finding objections or obstacles.  Here you want to bring all reasons not to buy to the surface. Failure to do so may have you crashing your sales ship on the reef and keeping you away from landing on the sales beach. This may be another reason why you “thought they said No.”

Here are five quick tips to help you have CLEAR communications:

#1: Clarity – Listen for clarity to separate the tangible from the intangibles and the “knowns” from the unknowns.

#2: Legitimize – You must listen to legitimize the real issues. Many times perceived problems are symptoms in disguise.

#3: Emotions – You must listen for emotions. Here is where the verbal words and the non-verbal gestures along with the syntax (speed pitch, volume and emphasis) are very important.

#4: Agreement – You must listen for agreement to find common ground from which you can build ongoing trust.

#5: Retention: You must listen for retention because the information that you are receiving is critical to your sales success. In many cases, the facts that you are receiving have Bern heard by others, but they simply failed to listen. Active listening is all about truly hearing and then remembering what the other person has just said.

(Source: Be the Red Jacket in a Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales Success, page 60, published with permission)

If you have ever have experienced “I thought they said No,” then maybe you may need to reassess your communication skills and your overall sales process.  Remember “No” may mean not now and may also suggest you have failed in securing your marketing goal to make a friend.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Asking the right question starts the sales process and helps to achieve this goal of  How do you sell more? Yet far too many sales people focus on asking the wrong questions or asking the same questions that everyone else has asked.

Before traveling into the why, one important word in the first paragraph is “asking” or better yet ask.  Many people believe they know the meaning of the words. Yet, I have discovered this I know that already (IKTA) creates confusion.

Webster’s New World Dictionary indicates the ask is an Anglo Saxon word of ascian.  Its first definition is

• “to use words in seeking the answer to (a question); inquire about. The first intent of this word is further understanding of an existing question.”

What this suggests if you do not know the existing question, you will have trouble asking. How many times in the buying/selling process do sales professionals fail to do their research (think homework)?  This keeps them from being able to seek the real answers from their potential customers (a.k.a. prospects).

Now returning to the question at hand, “How do you sell more?”  What would happen if you asked yourself this question “How can I help my customers buy more?”  Does restating this query provide a different perspective?  Would your behaviors be a little to dramatically different?

Years ago, there was a small little book called the QBQ! The Question Behind the Question by John G. Miller.  Even though this book addressed personal accountability, the author presents three (3) guidelines to better understand the question behind the question.

The first guideline is to begin with the word What or How.  Questions starting with Why, When and Who fail because the focus is on someone else or something else and not on you, your decisions or your behaviors.  After all to achieve the goal to increase sales begins with you, the decisions you make and the behaviors you demonstrate. How many times have we heard “When is the economy going to get better?” or similar such statements as the reason for not selling more?

Next, remove any of these words, they, them, we or you.  Your QBQ needs to have the letter I.  Are you beginning to see a pattern here? For sales is all about personal accountability, doing what you need to do to get to where you want to be. So what does personal accountability mean?  The definition I use is from Innermetrix Attribute Index and it is:

“The ability to be responsible for the consequences of one’s own decisions and actions; taking responsibility for these decisions, and not shifting focus for blame or poor performance somewhere else or on others. This derives from an internal responsibility to one’s self to be accountable and this internal willingness to own up will tend to be exhibited outside in one one’s actions.”

Personal accountability is directly connected to your decision making process and begins from the inside. If the goal is to how to sell more, personal accountability is a definite talent.  How many times have you heard sales people blame the customer, the competition even their own organization before they look at their own actions? Sales Coaching Tip: What I have discovered is many engaged in selling do not have a strong talent or strength when it comes to personal accountability.

Finally, the third step is to focus on action. Until action is taken, no change happens. Of course as Alan Deutschman in his book Change or Die revealed that only 1 out of 10 people will change.  This statistic is confirmed by ongoing sales research that suggests over 50% of all sales leads are left hanging on the vine and 10-20% of all sales people earn 90-80% of the sales. There is a lot of failed personal accountability within this profession.

Another book that I truly enjoy is the Questions that Sell by Paul Cherry.  He provides a very simple process to move the “how two sell” more along.

Spin Selling Fieldbook is another great resource to help any sales professional sell more. The vignettes that Rackham provides are real examples to help apply the practical advice he offers.

There are many other books that help sales professionals learn to create better asking questions when engaging with their potential customers (a.k.a. qualified prospects). And if you do not like books, you can peruse blogs such as this one to the numerous websites devoted to “how to sell more.”  Bottom line is when salespersons learn to ask better questions of themselves then they will realize their goals be it to increase sales, receive more referrals or just getting more clients.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Without doubt, asking smart questions is one of the keys to successful selling.

And for those selling complex products or services which require positioning or tailoring in line with the client’s business issues, it’s critical to use your questions to understand those business issues.

When I first started selling large consulting projects over a decade ago it was still common practice to ask very generic questions: “What keeps you awake at night?”, “What are your ‘red’ issues?”. Nowadays that just won’t wash.

Clients expect you to understand their business already, and to know the potential issues they and businesses like them may have (in your field). But it’s a fine line – they also don’t want you presuming you know more about their business than they do. They certainly don’t want to be told after 2 minutes that you can save them 20% of their manufacturing costs or that you can see that their biggest problem is staff retention. To do that is to simultaneously insult them (after 2 minutes I can see how fix problems you couldn’t Mr Client) and demonstrate your ignorance (they may already have tried what you’re suggesting, or their situation is different in some way).

What you need to do is phrase your questions so that they demonstrate your knowledge and prior research – but that don’t presume too much.

“A number of the clients we work with in your field are finding it critical to reduce their manufacturing costs to remain competitive. Is that an issue for you?”

“I noticed you have quite a high employee turnover rate compared to your competitors – what are the implications of that?”

Each of these questions can lead to more detailed follow-up probing to get to the bottom of the issue, its impact, and some of the potential root causes.

Help your clients understand their issues through smart questions and their perception of you as an expert will accelerate. Not because you’ve shown how much you know – but because you’ve shown how you can help them through that knowledge.

And please, don’t ask what keeps them up at night.

My answer to that question: “Nightmares about salespeople asking stupid questions they should know the answers to”.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Your time in front of a prospective customer is extremely valuable. The hardest part of the sales process can sometimes be just getting quality time in front of the prospect to ask questions. When you get to this point, you definitely want to make the most of your opportunity. You never know, this might be your only chance to advance the sale.

It is a great idea to take an evening to sit down and come up with a list of some great probing questions. It’s not like you will be doing this from scratch, either. This will be the time to search your memory for some of those great questions you asked before but might have forgotten. After you’ve made your list of probing questions, you have now created a great resource to review before meeting with a prospect. As time goes by, you will need to go back to this list to update it when you uncover new questions to ask.

A lot of salespeople usually have 3-4 probing questions they rely on. Because each customer and each situation is different, it is a good idea to expand your horizon in your questioning process. Chances are that you have lost sales because you didn’t ask the right question as your “go to” questions didn’t uncover any problems in the way these “lost” prospective customers were doing business.

When we don’t uncover problems in the way the customer is being served in the status quo, we cannot provide a solution. Without presenting a profit-justified solution, the chance of closing a sale is slim to zero. If you take the time to come up with an expanded list of good probing questions, you will uncover more problems and make more sales.

Popularity: 16% [?]

My wife hates it when I talk to telephone sales people. She thinks I’m rude and she would rather that I just didn’t answer the phone at all instead of being rude to the working stiff on the other end of the line.

But, I’m not rude. I’m giving sellers an opportunity to sell me without being a complete pushover. I am testing their skills so that I can write about what works and what doesn’t and educate those sellers interested in learning about the trade. Rude? For goodness sakes, I’m doing the sales world favor!

So, anyway, we receive a call and the caller ID says it is from Duane Reade. I knew it was a solicitor because we had ignored this same call on a couple of other occasions. But, needing to do the sales world a favor, I answered the call.

“Hi, is this Tim?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Tim, my name is Joe from Golf Digest. How are you doing today?”

“Fine, Joe.” (Sometimes I say, “Do you really care?” but my wife thinks that is rude and she might be right.)

“Good. The reason for the call is to make sure that you are receiving your Golf Digest and that you are happy with the magazine.”

(Another version of the “I’m not really calling to sell you anything” approach. Potentially annoying. Does any reasonable person actually believe that an automatically dialed phone call is coming from the customer service department of a magazine? If you don’t want people to be rude to you (which I wasn’t, of course) perhaps you shouldn’t assume they are stupid.)

“I am happy with the magazine.”

“That’s great! I’ll tell you what we are going to do. We are going to upgrade your account to ‘preferred’ and offer you our best rate of $1.88 per issue for renewing. How does that sound?”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, no.”

“You don’t want to renew?”

“No.”

“Alright then. You have a nice night.”

With that, Joe was gone. But, he shouldn’t have been gone. Joe got confused by my first ‘No’. Mainly because it was out of context. He didn’t ask me a yes/no question but got a ‘No’ anyway. He asked me, “How does that sound?” Naturally, he was expecting me to be excited about achieving ‘preferred’ status and to say that “it sounds good”. When I said, ‘No’ I threw him off his script and he didn’t know what to do.

So, Joe made a fatal mistake and he assumed that he knew what my ‘No’ meant. He offered me the reason I said ‘No’ by saying, “You don’t want to renew?” He should never have done that because he has now made it really easy for me to agree with him that I don’t want to renew.

When a customer throws you off by answering one of your questions in a way that doesn’t make any sense, you must get clarification of what is going on! For all Joe knows, I could have been saying ‘No’ to one of my rude children asking me a question while I was on the phone. Criminy! Is his training so bad and his reliance on his script so rigid that he just collapses when the customer refuses to play along?

How ’bout you? Is your training that bad or your reliance on a script that rigid?

Here is what Joe should have done after my initial ‘No’:

“Tim, you just said ‘No’ to a question that isn’t really a yes/no question. Was that ‘No’ directed toward me or someone in the room with you?”

“That ‘No’ was directed towards you, Joe.”

“Okay. I’m a little confused. You like the magazine. I just offered you our very best rate to renew and you said ‘No’. Why would a person say ‘No’ to renewing at our very best rate if they are happy with the magazine?”

(If you are thinking that you would never have the courage to go this direction with the conversation then you must get out of sales immediately! This is a simple clarifying question that must be asked.)

“Simple, really, Joe. I ordered a one year subscription of the magazine and I have received two copies. That means that I have ten months left before I need to renew. I never renew subscriptions until the subscription is about to expire.”

“I understand completely and it makes sense. Here’s the deal, though. We will never be able to offer this rate again. So, by renewing early you will get the very best deal and you will be locking in the very best deal for as long as you want. Even though you have only been receiving the magazine for two months, you have already experienced our award winning columnists, stroke-saving tips and interviews with the world’s best golfers and most influential golf course designers. As an avid golfer, I know you wouldn’t want to give that up and as a smart business man you wouldn’t want to pass up the savings being offered today. Would you prefer to extend your subscription for one, two or three years?”

When prospects throw you off, don’t just give up!  Fight back with clarifying questions!

Popularity: 12% [?]

You know, I was racking my brain thinking what to write about asking questions that hadn’t already been said. My fellow bloggers have pretty much echoed what I would have said from my own experience – that questions (the right questions) are integral to forming relationships and solving problems.

What I would like to share, I came across while listening to Shane Gibson’s ‘28 Days to Better Selling’ series. I assure you I wasn’t approached to recommend Shane’s podcast here, but in day 11 of the series Shane does go into depth about ‘Needs Analysis’ and a great discussion on question types and moving discussions along.

On listening to this podcast discussion I particularly empathised with a certain scenario, mainly because I have to resist the urge on every occasion to fall into the very trap being discussed. Picture the scene; you are at a networking event and you meet a great contact and spark up some rapport, you ask some great questions and develop quite an instant friendly discussion. There are certain questions that you know you ask that will instantly qualify a situation as a lead… it goes with the territory; you’ve asked these questions thousands of times before. You ask the question and three words come out of the other person’s mouth and you already know what issue that person has.

Inwardly, you are cackling with glee, you are an expert at this and know the solution. You are dying to spread the news and inevitably it is taking so long for the other person to finish. Like a primary school child who knows the answer to a maths question and strains to extend their arm up an extra foot above his classmates to prove his knowledge – the restrain finally breaks and you interrupt the other’s flow to gift wrap them the knowledge they so require. You fail.

No matter how much you want to help, sometimes the answer is not in the result but by the way the result is achieved. No matter the temptation, interrupting another person is against common courtesy and risks alienating yourself not only for being rude but for not listening – it’s obvious that while the other person is talking that you are already forming a different conversation. Besides, it’s incredibly arrogant to jump in assuming you already know the answer – you may not…

…that is unless you let the other person finish what they are saying. What exactly is the rush? Don’t be afraid to ask further questions, go over things again, think, ponder.

Be present in the moment and not looking forward to the next.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Prospects often ask questions throughout the buying process. Sometimes these questions are simple, other times complex. The most common reason prospects ask us these questions is because they have an interest in our product or service, and they want to learn more about it or about us. But there are other reasons these questions are raised, too.

Beware of questions asked…

…to fill time. When I was a sales representative, I had a customer (a husband) ask me a series of interesting questions during my sales appointment in his home. His wife couldn’t be at the appointment, and I had to run the appointment according to my manager, so I had to make the best of this so-called “one legged” appointment. To make a long story short, he ended up not buying from me. I was able to find out the reason for his decision, and this was it: He wasn’t interested in my product (not just from me and my company, but from any supplier).

As it turns out, Mr. Dutiful Husband was following the directions his wife gave him, which were to spend two hours talking to me about my product, even though he didn’t want to invest in this product.

…to be polite. In Minnesota, we have a phenomenon that has been called Minnesota Nice. This is when someone is seemingly kind to another person, but not genuinely so. In Minnesota, salespeople have to be careful because people will show interest in a product even if they’re not interested in it; they do this to be nice and neighborly and to not offend. Then, when they don’t buy, these Minnesotans don’t come right out and say, “I’m not interested.” Instead, they say, “We’ll have to think it over, you know.”

Fifteen phone messages later, you finally find out that they had no intention from buying from you because the customer built the garage addition himself.

In my travels, I’ve learned that Minnesota Nice could also be called Colorado Nice or California Nice or Florida Nice or maybe even Winnipeg nice (albeit maybe to a lesser extent than we experience here in Minnesota). Some customers have trouble behaving assertively, so they behave nicely instead.

…to shop you. Wise competitors will shop you to find out more about your product, your operations, and your pricing. I’ve caught many competitors shopping me because red flags were raised by their [too] many questions.

…because they enjoy your company. I’ve seen lots of prospects who enjoy talking to salespeople. They really get into it. When they find someone they like at car dealership, they’ll chit-chat, and they’ll do it for a long time. They enjoy the attention, the fun, the humor, and the connection with another human being – even if they aren’t going to buy their product.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Your value to your customer is not measured by what you know, but by the questions that you ask. You add value by making your customer think. The way that you ask questions will differentiate you in the way that you sell. In the ever competitive environment that we are in, when products and services are becoming commodities, the way that we sell can be our biggest differentiator. Add value during the sales process. Ask the right questions and your prospect will be only too pleased to give the time that you need to make the sale.

Knowledge is power and the more you know about your prospect’s company, business needs, decision matrix, personal needs / wants, problems / opportunities and your competition then the more likely you are to get the sale. Effective questioning, probing and listening will enable you to get the critical information you need to qualify the prospect, plan your sales calls, produce presentations and close the deal.

Asking questions of the prospect also puts them at the centre of attention and show that you care enough about them. You are looking to learn more about them, more about their problems, more about their opportunities and most importantly, you are getting the prospect to think. By asking questions, you move forward.

Generally, you should aim to speak no more than 30% of the time in a meeting, unless of course you are giving a formal presentation.

Effective questioning can:-

Provide you with the opportunity to help crystallise the prospect’s thinking.
Help you build rapport and trust by showing that you understand and show that you value the prospect’s opinion. Questioning also allows you to use their language, which in turn helps build rapport.
Allow you to gather vital information about the sale.
Enable you to control the meeting effectively.
Help minimise harmful misunderstandings that can occur.
Help reduce the resistance to the sale.

Rules to Apply when Asking Questions

Label the Question
Labelling a question before you ask it positions the question in the answerer’s mind. Labelling means that you first tell the answerer that you are going to ask them a question on a certain topic and then you ask them the question. The ‘label’ gives the answerer nanoseconds notice and this is enough time to allow them to formulate a deeper response. Labelling also tends to make it safer to ask the question as you have explained why you need to ask the question in the first place. Asking pertinent questions without labelling, the answerer may be taken aback and start wondering why you have asked the question and therefore may avoid answering it.

General Questions before Specifics
You need to understand the territory on which the sale is going to be conducted. You need to understand where the borders are before moving into specific detail. There are three steps to this process. First, ask broad open questions about the areas of possible interest. Then determine the priority areas. The third stage is to ask probing questions about the important broad topics in which the prospect is interested.

Time to Answer
Avoid multiple questions and allow enough time for the answerer to respond to your question before you move on to your next one. If you do not allow enough time for the answerer to respond, you are saying that the question was not that important in the first place.

Avoid too many Closed Questions
Asking too many closed questions will come across as if you are interrogating the answerer. Most people do not like to be interrogated. If you need to gather facts quickly, which means asking a series of closed questions, then tell the answerer what you are going to do.

Use the Person’s Name
People enjoy hearing their names and therefore use their name throughout the discussion while taking care not to overuse it. Without the use of the person’s name the discussion can come across as being very impersonal and therefore this does not build rapport.

Avoid Negative Questions
Negative questions may well put the answerer on the defensive and if so, rapport will not be built or rapport will be broken. Negative questions may well make the answerer feel stupid, incompetent, guilty, wrong, etc. Such feelings will not help the relationship. Avoid negative questions.

Allow the Answerer to Answer
Avoid asking a question and then answering it yourself before the answerer has been able to respond. If the answerer is taking time to think, then allow them the time. If they seem to be floundering, then help them get in a more resourceful state.

Allow Warm Up time
At the beginning of a meeting take time for a chit chat. Chit chat is not work related and therefore a more relaxed environment can be formed. Chit chat time will help build rapport and it will give you an opportunity to calibrate the answerer’s preferred sensory channel and perceptual filters.

Be Flexible
It is always good to plan your sales calls and plan how you would like the meeting to go. However, you will need to remain flexible and change if things are not going to plan. Avoid ploughing through your ‘pitch’ if it is no longer appropriate.

Be Confident
Be confident when asking questions. You deserve and should expect an answer. Do not allow your voice to trail off at the end of the question. Make sure your question is not asked half heartedly. Do not hesitate or show doubt. A lack of confidence may well allow the answerer to avoid the question.

Maintain Eye Contact
As part of the being confident process, you need to maintain direct, yet comfortable, eye contact after you have asked a question.

Use Sensory Language
Calibrate the answerer’s preferred sensory language and then construct your questions around this. Visual people see the world. Auditory people hear the world. Kinesthetic people feel the world.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Using questions as a critical component of successful selling is nothing new. Even those that just pay lip service to it know that it is the right thing to say. However knowing it and saying it are only a small step in the continuously evolving challenge of executing it in a winning way.

There are a couple of things that reps need to focus on to fully unleash the power of questions. In fact before you resolve to take your questioning skills to the next level, you should buy a great book that can help you in selling or raising teenage kids The 7 Powers of Questions, by Dorothy Leeds.

One thing that many can work on is the skill of asking questions that are less about the seller and more to the value as the buyer views it. To the credit of the profession many more reps are taking advantage of questions in selling, but more need to step back and think about asking questions that help the buyer make a complete decision. Many are still using questions are used to corner and coral clients in to fitting the product.

Questions should facilitate an exchange and discovery process that helps the buyer reach a decision based on their criteria, not the specs of the seller. This is not as difficult or mysterious as it sounds or some make it out to be. It does however require that the seller have an understanding of the business issues facing the prospect and build the sales around those. The good thing is that this approach once adopted is very inclusionary and as a result shortens the sales cycle because you have a willing participant and partner in the process.

At the same time, sellers need to be more willing to ask the tough questions. I am not sure if it is a result of sales people wanting to nurture “relationship” and feel they may offend the buyer asking direct, tough but necessary question.  Again let’s be clear we are not suggesting being difficult or controversial, but asking those things that are impacting the buyers business and realities they are facing day to day.

Often these questions are the most obvious things to ask, but maybe uncomfortable in some ways, so reps back away. However when done right, it is an opportunity to differentiate yourself from the others in the same sale. As an example, many reps will ask what the buyer’s priorities are, how they define success. Once they have an answer they use it as a launching point for their pitch rather than going a bit deeper. Why not ask why they are not where they want to be; why not ask what they attribute their inability to achieve certain things. Partly it is because we bring our assumptions and luggage with us and use the buyer’s initial answer as validation and a reason to jump in to our pitch. But by following through asking how they measure things, what they attribute things to, where they want to be and potential impact and risks involved in getting or not getting to where they want to and more. All these things will show you the buyer’s assumptions and preconceptions, their decision and action process, and with that what it takes to get the buyer to buy.

So it is true, questions are a powerful tool in sales, and as with any tool, make sure you use the right and best one for the task at hand.

Popularity: 10% [?]