Selling Power Magazine called last week, hoping to interview me about an article I wrote in my “Understanding the Sales Force Blog” back in January. I’ll give you the gist of it here:

Salespeople with good listening skills will hear the issues their prospects have. Salespeople with good questioning skills will identify the problems causing those issues. Salespeople with both listening and questioning skills will be able to reiterate those problems and issues.

Taking it one step further, some of the best salespeople – and often some of the most simple-minded of them – have the ability to recognize the one compelling thing for which their prospects will invest money. You must be able to see the forest through the trees in order to do this. You must be able to shotgun through their list of problems and be able to say to the prospect the one thing that might not even be on the list, like, “it’s clear to me that the single biggest problem you have is how overwhelming this all is…”

That prospect will spend money, with you, to no longer feel overwhelmed with their whole list of issues because you can help them with their issues.

Learn to do this and you will double or even triple your sales. In Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball, this questioning strategy is detailed in the chapter on Getting to 2nd Base.