Five Areas for Thought Provoking Questions

We are being mislead by the continuous chorus of being politically correct or soft pedaling your questions. Well, throw those thoughts out the window – if you want to stay in the b2b sales game for a long time.

Okay, it is true about most b2b sales people being trained using the traditional or old school model of selling. This is one that relies upon you telling your story – over and over and over again. Unfortunately for you, your competitors are using the same stories for the most part and the customers are getting bored.

The boredom is transferred to asking you about price before you have had any time to develop a value to your sales presentation. The real reason for the price question is to stop you in your tracks.

So, how do you get the prospective customer to be patience and open up about their real situation? You must use thought provoking questions designed to show you are a b2b sales professional who wants to help them.

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The Real Five Reasons for an Ideal Prospect

We all know the most important aspect of our b2b sales world is to continuously find fully qualified or highly motivated prospects. Without these new comers to our world, then real sales growth becomes very difficult.

And, you have probably heard about having an ideal customer profile to use as a guide when looking for prospects or truly targeted accounts.

While the ideal customer profile is a good tool and is very useful in determining who you should invest your time and energy with for your future sales growth, there are five other factors that truly make a difference in determining a real ideal prospect.

So what are these five reason someone can be labeled an ideal prospect? Here are the five reasons…

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Customers Don’t Want to be Sold Anything

Yes, that is totally and 100% correct. Customers or potential customers don’t want to be sold anything.

In fact, if you are using the same old school tactics they have already seen three to six times before seeing you do the same things. Well, it does not feel good from the customer’s point of view. They have greeting other sales people during the day – all using the same small talk tactics – is that your family in  the picture? Did you really catch the fish? Shoot the dear? So you like to ski? Blah, blah, blah.

What are you doing to be different?

First, always remember this – Being Trusted by the Customer is More Important than Being Liked by the Customer.

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Listen before Sharing a Solution

Once again I watched a b2b sales person do a no-no, if they want to be effective and sell more to their customers. What is the no-no I’m talking about?

No Sharing Solutions or Making a Presentation until You Have Listened in Depth to What the Customer or Prospect Desires.

I know, this is considered an elementary issue by some of you, yet, I continue to see b2b sales people continue to shoot themselves in the foot and admire their marksmanship – rather not shooting in the first place.

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