Correct Questions: Launch Your Sales Pitch With a Savvy Start

The sales process is all around us, in many places outside of the business conference room. In fact, sales happen on street corners, on golf courses, over the phone and even across a dinner table. That’s right – selling is a part of both our personal lives as well as our professional lives. Recently, a marketing and sales expert and contributing writer for Forbes Magazine confessed in an article that he learned a large portion of successful sales from a crushing dating experience. That’s right, romance can teach us something about selling!

Think about the pursuit of love. You glance across a room, and there she (or he) is. You have your eyes on the prize and you know what you want. It’s the same in business – you have a goal in mind… a desire that burns so strongly that you would go to great lengths to close the “deal” and take your reward. It might be that generously sized corporate client, a talented new hire that would be a great fit for your team, or a project that you are bidding against three competitors. The sales process begins, and the last thing you want to do is blow the deal. Just like the marketing director in Forbes learned the hard way, you know that you can’t just walk across the room to that beautiful lady, interrupt her conversation with the group she’s talking to, and invite her right there to the symphony tomorrow night. No, no, no! You need to have the right approach, including the appropriate questions.

With a sales “courtship,” you have to keep the client’s interests in mind, and be willing to maintain flexibility based on their wants and needs. To begin the process towards closing the deal, you need to gather information from your customer, and beginning by asking quality questions. It’s a discovery process. Asking the right questions builds trust and shows client-focused thinking.

When selling you have to be artfully skilled at asking questions to strategically uncover clients hot buttons and leverage points. You need the client to tell you what the pain points are even if you believe you know the buttons or points. Until you can skillfully do that you will have a tough time closing the deal!

While these ideas do not encompass all the possibilities, they begin to portray a picture of the growing understanding between a sales representative and his/her client that reflects a budding relationship leading towards a sale. Becoming skilled in asking the right questions with the appropriate timing can set you apart from others in this tough economy. Learn to master the art of asking questions, and you’ll increase your sales success exponentially by demonstrating that you are considering the client’s needs first. Contact us today to gain an even more acute understanding with personalized sales success coaching!