Sales question bank

Here’s version one of the SalesItch sales question bank. The plan is to build this into the web’s most comprehensive, free list of categorised sales questions. Enjoy!

Wax lyrical like a CEO

Learn and stay up-to-date with business book abstracts

(BTW this is an independent recommendation. I have not and will not accept sponsorship/advertising/paid-for-plugs on SalesItch)

As sales people we have to know our prospects' businesses and industries. We have to understand their challenges and opportunities. That's a pretty hard thing to do, especially if you deal with a number of industries and/or functions.

I made a discovery recently that has helped me get a much wider understanding, particularly of management practices and trends. GetAbstract create abstracts of business books in Palm, PDF, Pocket PC, Simplified PDF (for BlackBerrys) and occasionally MP3. They are designed to cram the key points from business books into ten minutes. Considering that most business books pad themselves out so much, I think you get the most important points without the crap. Here's how they describe themselves :

"getAbstract is the world's largest provider of business book summaries. We make you the best-read, most expert player on the business scene today.

• getAbstract's library consists of 4,000 business book summaries.
• getAbstract produces 500 new business book summaries every year.
• getAbstract offers business book summaries from 300 different publishers.

It costs US$299 per year / US$179 per half-year, so it's not cheap. You can download sample PDF abstracts here. Check 'em out.

More sales questions!

Additions to the most popular post on SalesItch

More questions have been added to the SalesItch Question Bank. A big thanks to Derrick and Mike at The Hire Sense for their contributions to what I hope will become the biggest, best list of sales questions.

Don't forget to share your questions by leaving a comment.

Click here for the questions!!!

P.S. More categories, better organisation and more questions coming soon...

Business cards/ psychopathic murderers

Control card rage

Seth Godin makes a good point about business cards in this post :

"In an era where no one dresses up anymore, they give you a chance to position yourself, to represent who you are and what you do in a three cent piece of paper. And yet... almost all business cards are terrible."

True, but just be careful to avoid card rage (office-safe clip from American Psycho movie)!

Sales Dilemma No.1

What would you do in this situation?

There’s a story in sales job hunting folklore where the smugly smiling interviewer plucks out a pen from his jacket pocket and say, “Sell me this pen”. What would you say? Here are the options I came up with:

• Wind up the interview and walk out (on the basis that if you get the job you will be working for crappy management with an old school approach)
• Sell it “consultatively” - Establish their situation, identify pains, etc (“How do you currently record information? How would you like to change your current situation if you could?”, etc,). This could be an exceptionally difficult sell… it’s likely to be a highly undifferentiated product and if the interviewer decides to make life difficult for you are really in trouble!
• Pitch it straight off – “This pen has a beautiful red line along the side, writes fantastically, etc…”
• Skilfully explain to the interviewer why this is not a good interview question

Personally I would only know which of the above I would choose in the heat of the moment. I lean towards the first or last options. What would you do?

Mr Miyagi says, “Act As If, Salesman, san”

Take on the qualities of others to overcome short-term self-doubt

This technique, "Act as if", seems so “new age-y” that I’d like to tell you that I learned it from some Mr Miyagi style sales guru in a misty Japanese valley when training as a complex-sale ninja.

In fact I learned it from an obnoxious middle-aged sales manager halfway up a tower block in Bristol. Still, it really works, and if you suspend your scepticism for a moment, you could take a look at this and see if it’s for you.

All of us have been in situations in which we feel out of our comfort zone. Meeting senior executives early in your sales career, negotiating lump-in-the-throat important contracts, or presenting to large numbers of people are good examples for most people.

The strange thing is (unless it requires specialist knowledge you don’t have), you do actually know what needs to be said and done to successfully deal with the situation (for example, “I need to go in there, shake hands with everyone, look confident and strike up conversation with the CEO”).

Furthermore, in almost all cases you are physically capable of doing these things (i.e. saying the words, making the movements), but some how you feel you just “can’t” do it, because of all the things that make you, you.

This is an effective quick fix that can get you through those moments of self doubt :

1. Ask yourself “Who would THRIVE in this situation? Who would absolutely ace this, without question?” (Perhaps a family friend, former boss or colleague, TV/film character)
2. Picture this person in your head successfully dealing with the situation. Watch them in your mind, look at their movements, listen to what they say, and think what they would think, adopt their body language…
3. Take the useful elements of what you have just seen and heard, get up and walk into that situation, imbued with the qualities of the person you were thinking about.

Ridiculously simple and very effective. If you find using other people as examples weird, just think of a time in the past that you performed brilliantly and replay it in your head. It may take you a little time to "get", so try it 5 times in the next week or so before you make your final judgement.

Even if you are sceptical now, I guarantee you’ll try this next time you’re faced with such a situation (That’s just a guess by the way – seeing into the future is next week’s sales ninja blog post ;-)

Honest, I'm NOT in recruitment!

Get your UK/Euro sales jobs here!

Everyone seems to be asking me for good sales people right now (which is odd, as I'm not actually in recruitment!). Here are the positions I know about. If you are interested, contact me and I'll put you in touch.

• Software Sales - Field sales, territory based
  
• 2 x Field sales reps selling into the European academic market
• Web services sales - Field sales, but Oxford based

If none of those grab you, let me know what you're after, as I know some guys who might be able to help.

How to lose your credibility in less than one second

Cliched phrases turn buyers off

I think it's entirely reasonable to suggest that anyone who uses the following phrases in their sales or marketing materials should be shot :

• "In today's competitive marketplace"
  
• "In today's global marketplace"

Together, these two search terms get 150,000 mentions on Google. However true it is, when something is said too much it loses all its meaning and becomes a cliche. Please. Stop. It's boring...