The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Most salespeople prepare very carefully for every client interaction. Your preparation will dictate whether you are granted face time for that first appointment (and subsequent appointments), and it will dictate how much information you are allowed to gather in a needs analysis meeting.

But the nature of sales often leads us to focus on our own objectives when preparing; we want the appointment, or we want to learn about a specific objective a client might have that we know can translate into a selling opportunity.

If your customer-focused approach is sincere, there is one question—a simple question that can be asked in a multitude of ways—that can help you gain even greater respect and revenue from this customer.

So, you've got the appointment for your Discover meeting. Good for you...now what? The Discover meeting is a critical part of the selling process, so “winging it” should never be your strategy. 

Most sellers understand that the goal of the Discover meeting is to uncover an urgent need that they can help solve, and then leave with an assignment. To accomplish this, you must ask great questions.

By “great” questions, I mean ones that: get the wheels turning inside their head, make them glad you asked, allow them to talk about what’s hot from their point of view, and make you seem valuable. Remember, every question you ask will either enhance or detract from your credibility.

Buyer-first mentality is simply defined as it’s a buyer’s world, and sellers are just living in it.

In the past, traditional sellers could easily come in and build a case because they were a superstar, had great product knowledge, and were able to support the buyer’s organization. In essence, they were selling what they could accomplish for the client without ever knowing anything about them.

Technically, those days are over now. Buyers expect you to know more about what their company is all about, what they do, and potentially what they’re trying to accomplish.

Getting that first appointment with a new business prospect is rarely an easy task.

In fact, there is usually a direct correlation between how long it takes to get an appointment and the spending potential of a prospect. Simply put, quality prospects take more time! 

Because so many hours are spent persuading a prospect to meet, it makes sense to get the most out of the meeting. World-class salespeople use the first appointment to uncover business challenges that lead to cash, instead of wasting the opportunity pitching, pitching, pitching. 

After getting comfortable and socializing a bit with the prospect during the opening minutes of the call, try the following steps to get the most out of the opportunity:

Costumes, Ghosts and Goblins, Spooky Spiders, and Candy are fun Halloween traditions. 

Each year, children dress up and go door-to-door, exclaiming “trick or treat” in hopes of getting a handful of candy to add to the stash they’ve already collected. To a child, there is no such thing as too much candy… in fact, the one with the most candy by the end of the night wins.

What’s interesting is while children give the choice… “trick or treat,” we all know that they don’t want to be tricked. All they really want is treats!  They want to be delighted with yummy, fun-to-eat candy.

Have you ever set a goal for yourself to run a race?

Whatever the motivation, you decided to do it. It may have been on a whim, but nonetheless, you realized there was more to it than showing up the morning of the race and running. You probably found a race that suited your ability, recruited a friend to join you in the adventure, set a training schedule, and off you went.

By no means did you show up for registration the morning of with no prep at all. Well, I hope not anyway. If you did, it probably didn’t go as well as you would have liked. You may have looked back and asked yourself what you could have done differently to change the outcome. I’m guessing the answer is, almost always, more training, so you were better prepared.

What is the best way is to start a conversation? Ask the other person a question. 

We learn by asking questions.

Smart business people never stop asking questions. Your prospect probably forms their opinion about you based more on what you ask them, than on what you tell them.

“Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers” - Voltaire