Click Here For Volume I And Context On The “My 150” series.
*** WARNING *** The “My 150” Series contains Complete Candor. Some may find this material offensive, threatening, and hurtful.
In case you haven’t heard me on the radio or seen me speak – I’m a Southern Boy. It’s the speech pattern that gives me away early (well, that and the boots). Despite a fairly strong command of the language, I often neglect to include the “g” at the end of words like huntin’, fishin’, and sellin’ – prefer simple analogies and colorful examples over technical phrases and industry terms, and have a reputation for sharing distinctly southern phrases to make critical points when I’m on the platform.
I Mention It Because: The way most “sub-150” Speakers / Authors / Consultants go about this business of Asking Questions in a sales call is what I would characterize as “too much sugar for a dime.”
“My 150” Wake Up Call: Top Performers in our arena don’t ask nearly as many questions as you’ve probably been lead to believe – and when they do, it’s rarely to determine needs. In most cases, they have a pretty good handle on what the organization needs well before they ever darken the client’s door. They do ask questions of course – but not that many, and for a completely different set of reasons than your neighborhood Sales Trainer is teaching.
High Velocity Speakers / Authors / Consultants:
1. Ask Questions To Get The Answers They Actually Need in order to help the client solve her problem. If they don’t need the answer, they don’t ask the question.
The one exception to this: Sometimes (perhaps when a client has an obvious “blind spot” that could seriously jeopardize the work or even keep him from taking action), the Top Performer might ask a couple of questions to facilitate the client’s self-discovery and “jog” them out of their fear, complacency, posturing, (insert your favorite executive pathology here).
2. Give Answers. They have specialized expertise that can make or save the organization millions of dollars, and they share it – fast, early and often.
By Stark Contrast . . . our every bit as knowledgeable, talented, yet “sub 150” colleagues:
1. Ask A Ton Of Questions – questions that demonstrate industry knowledge and time invested in researching the company, questions to illustrate genuine interest in the organization and their challenges, questions to quantify perceived value of solving the problem, questions to map out the decision making process, questions to determine budget, questions to establish time frame, questions to verify assumptions.
All noble pursuits, All good stuff . . . And . . . All providing very little if any real value to the client.
Reality Check: This “value to the client” thing is important – extremely important.
Asking all these questions rarely provides it.
2. Give Very Few Answers – give them slowly, late, and far too infrequently. I’m mostly referring to answers that will help the executive do her job, save money, make money, and solve her problem – but the most interesting to observe (we observe quite a bit in our Sales Troubleshooting work ) is the money conversation:
Client: “How Much?”
High Velocity Hal: “$32,416 plus expenses”
“Sub 150” Sam: “Well, there are a lot of factors that impact our pricing model. With respect to time and materials, we’ll want to ascertain anticipated pilot program participation levels, and explore any multi-program discounting options available to us. Regarding our proposal to provide ongoing consulting support and Learning Management System (LMS) admin, that’s really going to be a function of . . .”
“Uhhh . . . it really just depends.”
Are You Asking Too Many Questions?
Are You Asking Questions solely to demonstrate your level of preparation?
(Stop this – They’re not impressed.)
Are You Giving Answers and Providing Immediate Value?
(Do this or stay in the shallow end of the pool.)
Selling Professional Services Really Is Different – particularly high-end, premium fee services that help organizations make or save millions of dollars. If you want to be taken seriously at the deep end of the pool . . .
- Ask questions to Get The Answers You Actually Need in order to help the client solve her problem. If you don’t need the answer, don’t ask the question.
- Forget The Hype about open-ended vs. closed-ended questions.
(If you need the answer to a closed-ended question, Ask It.)
- Answer The Executive’s Question – quickly and confidently.
- Share Your Expertise – fast, early, and often.
- Don’t Dodge The Money Question.
(While you’re at it, charge what your worth . . . topic for another post, another day)
See ya in the Fast Lane . . .
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Stone, no BS — this is one of the best posts I’ve seen on your blog… The pricing issue is one that I have never understood and I’m really glad that your raised it. It’s always been a pet peeve of mine when sales people act like pricing is some kind of magic that has to be conjured in a secret cave in the presence of fairies, elves and martians under a full moon. Only then can a price be mystically divined and subsequently delivered to you a week later by your sales person. The ability to quickly quote (or at least ballpark) a project demonstrates competence and frankly — is a skill that every true expert in just about any industry should have. Great post Stone, I’ll end my rant here
Thanks for the compliment Erik. Yeah — I know I get annoyed pretty quickly when I can’t get a fast, straight answer on pricing, and my experience in observing sales calls (simulation and real live) has been that Execs’ patience wears pretty thin on this too.
. . . Couple this with a ton of Unnecessary Questions and No Answers from someone who is trying to represent themselves as an expert — you get marginal closing rates, and “sub 150″ earnings.
Stone,
You have successfully broken down the primary difference between top performers and the middle majority – as simple as it sounds the chasm is still difficult to cross. You nailed this! I have never heard a top performer ask a stakeholder “what keeps you up at night?” – executives don’t want to educate sales people on their problems – they want to work with someone that they believe understands them and can help solve them.
One thing you don’t mention is confidence – a top performer and middle majority performer can say the exact same thing but only the top performer will move the deal forward because they are CONFIDENT and CREDIBLE.
I hope you continue to pursue this topic. It’s very relevant.