Peady’s Selling Engagement sponsored by IRD Prospector
I believe focus is the greatest challenge for salespeople today.
Why? For my money, focus allows you to clearly understand the needs of your customer (or potential customer). And then find a solution. In my 30 plus years of experience in the sales profession, I have identified several places where focus will gain you the greatest results and best outcomes.
The list includes:
- Qualifying the right prospect
- Talking to the right person
- Asking the right questions
- Identifying the right opportunity
- Knowing the right time to close the discussion
Of all the things that you can do and say when you are talking with a customer, there is none that comes close to the power of asking a great or thought provoking question. Nothing else comes close to formulating powerful questions.
Powerful Questions
I’ve put together a selection of the most powerful questions you can ask a customer – some are specifically for the first meeting. These questions will provide you with the insights to determine how or where you may be able to offer value, where challenges and opportunities exist and what the customer is thinking. More importantly, these questions will encourage the customer to speak freely; maybe even prompting the response “nobody ever asked me that before!”
- What has changed most about your business in the last year?
- What do your customers most value about your company?
- Describe the biggest challenges you are facing? Is there a financial impact?
- Which suppliers are you currently using? Who are the most effective?
- How do you measure success for your business?
- What is your competition doing that you should be doing?
- Where do you have a competitive advantage?
- Other than yourself, who else will be involved in the decision to move forward?
- What three big things have contributed to your success so far?
- What conditions need to be satisfied for our companies to do business together?
- What do your sales people tell you about the market (or your competition or customers)?
- What’s the one big question you wish sales people would ask you more often?
If there is only one practice you decide to change as a professional salesperson, make it the mastery of asking better questions, great questions, thought provoking questions.
Bonus Idea
At your next sales meeting why not discuss this post; ask each other if the questions I put forward are useful. Then have a team brainstorm to find another 20 great questions to ask – and don’t forget to make some of them industry specific.
About the author
Stephen Pead is a media industry veteran of 30 years with significant experience in direct sales, sales management and general management. He is based in Sydney and specialises in helping SME’s market their businesses more effectively and providing training for salespeople and sales managers.
He can be contacted at [email protected]
