asking questions
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4 Reasons Why Salespeople Suck at Consultative Selling.
- September 26, 2017
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Yesterday, a sales manager I was coaching asked me to explain the difference between a great question and a tough question. I gave him the one-minute version but this article has the expanded version of that answer.
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Dissecting the #1 Sales Best Practice
- August 26, 2016
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
One company is attempting to create a compilation of best sales practices by sending out a weekly survey to sales leaders and asking them to choose from multiple choice questions what they most often do and teach. The topic changes each week. This is silly because (1) it just isn’t that simple, (2) it’s different for each selling role, each vertical, the decision makers they call on, their price points, the length of their sales cycle, and their respective competition, just to name a few. In addition, when you ask multiple choice questions like this, the answers will be so varied that there won’t be even a few, never mind a single best practice. Here is an example of what they asked this week:
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Driving, Asking Questions, Inside Sales, and Sales Process with a Twist
- September 8, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
“You’ve been driving a car since you were a teenager, but your cars have always had an automatic transmission and you’ve always driven on standard roads. Now we will ask you to drive a much larger car, drive it at faster speeds, on an obstacle course, with people in your way. Oh, and one more thing – for the first time, you’ll be driving a six-speed manual transmission. You might be afraid to take your foot off the clutch and put the car into first gear because, if you’re not careful, you might kill those people standing in front of your car!
“That’s how salespeople sometimes feel when they need to be liked and are expected to ask their prospects some really difficult questions. Salespeople think someone will be killed – and they worry that it might be them!”
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How the Right Questions Can Make up for Lack of Sales Experience
- August 11, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Magic, racing and expectations are major factors in sales. We will discuss the role of each and how salespeople can be more consistent when they better understand those 3 factors and learn to manage them.
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Top 5 Interesting Sales Tips
- December 13, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Depending on the context of the conversation, weather, personality and the frame of reference of their prospect, here are the top five things that “Interesting” could mean:
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Can Your Salespeople Sell More Effectively by Asking More Questions?
- October 22, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
By now most executives understand the role and importance of questions in the sales process.
More questions? Okay.
Better questions? Sure.
Tougher questions? Makes sense.
Questions that result in the kind of conversations that none of your competitors are having with your prospects? Sounds great.
But can your salespeople do this?
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