I'm a sell out

So I finally sold out. The week before last I was on a date with a really beautiful, intelligent woman and she asked me exactly what my job was – and I wavered.

Up until now I have been adamant that I will always describe my job as “sales” rather than any euphemism designed to artificially glamourise or obscure my role. I think this is important because using a euphemism implies that there is some shame in being a sales person. Take a read of my post on that here.

Well, anyway, I sold out and described myself as “in business development. I go out there and make the deals happen.” or some such other sickening line! So forgive me fellow sellers. I hope you will still see me as one of you! Anyway, it must have worked, as I have another date with her next week :-)

What are you selling?

Seth Godin gives some great advice on selling the intangible elements of your proposition here.

MyLife Organized

Anyone who read my previous post on Getting Things Done, will probably be interested in a fantastic piece of software that can be configured to work perfectly with the methodology. It’s called MyLife Organized.

I won’t reinvent the wheel : take a look at further information here .

There is even a pocket PC version (Windows Mobile) that you can use in conjunction with your desktop/laptop.

And of course, there’s a free trial.

Please, close late. And just occasionally.

I thought the "close early, close often" approach to sales was well and truly dead and buried. Unfortunately it seems not. Today I was on a mobile phone provider's website using the chat facilities to talk to their sales staff (an interesting new-ish channel for sales people that I should investigate more). Straight after I typed in "Hello", the first thing the sales person typed to me was "Hi. Are you looking to buy a contract today?"

OK, granted, this is not a close, but it's pretty high pressure and self-centered from the off. In fairness, this sales person probably needs to quickly qualify prospects, but the effect on me was immediate distrust and irritation. In any case, I'm not looking to "buy a contract", I'm looking to setting up on-the-move wireless for my funky new netbook. Where's your interest in helping me achieve what I want? I'm the one with the cash!

I ignored his or her questions and went ahead to get the answers I needed.

Sales questions : identifying problems/pain

Here are a few of my favourite sales questions for uncovering prospects’ issues. Some more direct than others. Enjoy!
• How have things changed in company/industry in the last few years/ months?
• (If they tell you about a recent project or initiative) What do you think are the biggest “lessons learned” from this project? How would you do things differently? With the benefit of hindsight how would you run such a project again, if you had to?
• What are the biggest developments in the industry? How are you keeping up with that? What do you think that will look like in the future?
• What’s most important for you; X, Y or Z? (change as required, e.g. “increasing market share, generating new sales or raising profitability” or “finding good people, lowering staff turnover or finding a way to cut the number of sick days taken by staff?”)
• What are the biggest challenges you face with (department, business, industry, product, etc) right now?
• What are the big initiatives you are working on right now? What issues have you faced in achieving these?
• What are the big changes in (department, business, industry, product, etc) right now?
• What’s the “big goal” at the moment? What’s standing in the way of you achieving that?
• (When they talk about a current project or initiative) Are those the results you hoped/planned for?
• What’s the number one most important thing for you/ your boss/ company/ industry/ customers now?
• What’s the number one most important thing for you/ your boss/ company/ industry/ customers now going into the future?
• A lot of companies seem to be having issues with (Problem X, problem Y and Problem Z) right now. Is that your experience too?
• Do you think (problem X) is more of an issue than (problem Y?)
• What do/does your boss/ company/ industry/ customers complain about / struggle with?
• What changes do/does your boss/ company/ industry/ customers want to see?
• What do you think is going to cause the biggest changes / threats / issues in your business in the next X years?
• What would you like to achieve from today’s meeting?
• What have been your biggest successes in (area X)? What else would you like to improve on?
• What's keeping you from perfection in X, Y or Z?
• If you had no limitations, no budget restraints, no (other problem), what would you aim to do? (now work back to find the problems that are a barrier to them achieving their goals)
More questions for you to use in your selling coming soon. Bookmark/RSS SalesItch now…. And don’t forget to add a comment to share your favourite questions with the community!