Leverage Sales Questions to Demonstrate Expertise
Asking the right sales questions is the best way to show you're a smart savvy seller. BONUS - get Jill's top 4 sales prospecting tools at http://www.jillkonrath.com/tools
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TRANSCRIPT
Can you really leverage questions to demonstrate your expertise? Absolutely. And, it's one of the best ways I know to show that you're a smart, savvy seller who could bring value to a relationship.
The way you do it is by wrapping the question with your knowledge. For example, I could ask a potential prospect "What kinds of problems are your salespeople facing today?" --- which is a nice open-ended question and might get someone talking.
Or, I could say this: "Based on my work with a number of other business-to-business sales forces, I find that the top three issues they're facing are: 1) Difficulty setting up initial meetings with key decision makers; 2) Getting customers to decide to change from the status quo; and 3) Differentiating themselves from the competition. Which of these is having the most impact on your sales force?
See the difference? In the first one, I just asked a decent question. In the second one, I used my knowledge of what other similar customers are facing to set up the question - and I asked a more pointed question -- one that will get me better answers. And finally, it showed that I worked a lot with people like him.
You have expertise too. Think about how you can leverage it to ask 3-5 really insightful, provocative questions. I promise you it'll have an impact.