The Most Powerful Sales Questions The best type of sales questions? The answer might surprise you! Open ended? Closed ended? Interrogative led? Challenging? In The Surprising Power of Questions, Harvard Business Review May-June 2018, Alison Wood Brooks and Leslie John, provide an answer that agrees with my own observation of sales game film. The Best Type of Question? (Drum Roll Please!) Brooks and John conclude … Read more
Why Intent Matters People don’t argue with their own ideas. When you hear an indication of need on a discovery call, follow their thought. Two ways to follow their thought are: “Tell me more.” “Is there more I should understand?” Call recordings show both approaches work. But not equally. “Tell me more.” is a command. A command may work in face-to-face selling because people fear … Read more
Don’t Believe Your Own Marketing (Too Much) Sophisticated product marketing teams provide personas and typical pain points as a starting point for sales conversations. They also love to arm sales teams with case studies. On call recordings, I hear salespeople telling customers about the typical pain points and referencing the case studies. As counter-culture as this may sound, the customer’s reaction is typically, “That’s not … Read more
Why asking “I am curious” is disingenuous I’ve talked before about the need for salespeople to be curious, so it may come as a surprise when I tell you not to say you’re curious. To be curious is a mind set. To say, “By the way, I’m curious,” is another thing entirely that can feel disingenuous because the question is hiding a deeper motivation, and … Read more
The Purpose of Questions When you’re on a sales call, you should have a purpose. That purpose helps to focus your questions and guide the call, to ultimately bring about a solution. If you went to engineering school, like I did, you were taught that asking the right questions will bring you 80% of the way to a solution. You cannot jump to a solution, … Read more
Sales: A Scientific Method Most people would argue that sales is an art, not a science. I don’t disagree, but I do believe you can apply the scientific method to the sales process. For those of you who’ve been out of school for a while, here’s a refresher on the steps: Ask a question Do background research Construct a hypothesis Test with an experiment Analyze … Read more
The Surprising Power of Questions “Top-performing salespeople ask questions differently…” This is a quote from The Surprising Power of Questions by Alison Wood Brooks and Leslie John, Harvard Business Review May-June 2018. The quote is based on analysis of call recordings by Gong, a tech company that provides a sales call recording and analysis tool. The article is packed with research by various groups on … Read more