A Swiss Army Knife

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In selling, questions play a central role. They’re the sales pro’s Swiss Army knife. You’ve got a multi-faceted tool that you can employ in almost any situation.

Questions are the tools you use to ask for or about anything. You use questions to set up a meeting with a prospect, to ask for relevant sales information, to ask prospects why they’re hesitating to buy, and ultimately to ask for the order and close the deal.

Questions and probes serve lots of different functions in the process of selling. If I had to pick the most strategic uses I’d offer these three: Continue reading →

What’s This About?

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You’ve been making prospecting calls for the last hour and haven’t reached a single decision maker. All of a sudden on your next attempt, you’re transferred to the head of finance at a good-sized assisted living organization. Not surprisingly, he sounds busy and distracted. You barely have a chance to introduce yourself and he responds coldly, “What’s this about?”

Now you’ve got about ten seconds to pique his interest and make him feel like you’re someone worth talking to.

It’s an uncomfortable but not unfamiliar situation. What you don’t want to do for sure is fall into the nervous trap so many salespeople do when they face an intimidating suspect: vamping for time or vainly trying to warm up the call with platitudes and padding. “How are you today?” or “The reason for my call is…” Continue reading →

The Warm Hand Of The Familiar

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Have you noticed we’re living in a world of short attention spans and constant distractions? But maybe you were busy checking email or Facebook and didn’t notice.

Distraction and the pull of novelty are so rampant now that a recent Microsoft study found people have an average attention span of 8 seconds, down from 12 seconds in the early 2000s when cell phones first began absorbing a tidy percentage of our attentional resources.

While our 21st century brains are becoming more and more are addicted to novelty and distraction, our yearning for the things that are familiar and predictable has grown as well.  A recognizable world is a safe world, and familiar situations provide a sense of security. Continue reading →

Why incubating sales leads makes such a huge difference

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Anyone who earns their living in sales (or has seen the movie Glengarry Glen Ross) knows that not all leads are the same. Some are “sales ready” from the get-go and others need to be nurtured and coaxed along.

Nurturing leads is the popular expression these days, but we like the term incubate better. Incubation is a process that provides optimal conditions for growth and development.

You might be getting new business leads from trade shows, your own teleprospecting efforts, referrals from other clients, or even from a serendipitous meeting at a dinner party or your kid’s soccer game. Continue reading →