Questions to Help Open Up the Sale

By Mike Brooks, Mr. Inside Sales

Have you ever been in a closing situation that seems to have stalled, where your prospect isn’t really objecting, but they sure aren’t going where you want them to go? Sometimes during a close you’ll find it necessary to sort of re-open the close, to keep your prospect talking, and to find out exactly what is on their mind.

This is especially true when you’re not sure how to respond to an objection or to how your prospect or client feels about a specific point or feature. It is times like these that you need to just ask a question and let your prospect tell you which direction you need to go in, or how you should respond.

Use the following questions to help open your prospect up and to get them to reveal where they really stand, and what you need to do to close the
sale:

“I can tell that’s important to you; why does it mean so much?”

“Let me see if I have this right. You (restate what they said), right?
What would have to change for this to work for you then?”

“Do I have that right?”

“What else do I need to know to understand how this affects your operation?”

“How would you react if I told you we could handle that and give you this?”

“Can you give me more detail on that?”

“What is your perspective on this?”

“And what has led you to feel that way?”

“What is your experience with this (solution)?”

“When was the last time you tried this?”

“What would have made it work better for you?”

“If you went ahead with this, what would be the worse thing that could happen?”

“I hear you saying X, but I’m also hearing something else. Could you elaborate on that please?”

“And if you didn’t move on this solution today, how are you going to change your results and get more (leads, sales, production, etc.)?”

“Do you see how this (your solution) has been designed to fix your exact problem?”

“How is this sounding so far?”

“I see where you’re coming from. How did you arrive at that?”

“What leads you to believe that?”

If you found these questions helpful, then you will love Mike’s Ebook:
“The Complete Book of Phone Scripts,” which is packed with word for word scripts and techniques that you can begin using today to make more appointments and more sales. You can read about it by clicking here: http://www.completetrainer.co.uk/Training_Books/Complete_Book_of_Phone_Scripts


Mike Brooks, Mr. Inside Sales, works with business owners and inside sales reps throughut the US teaching them the skills, strategies and techniques of top 20% performance. If you’re looking to catapult your sales, or create a sales team that actually makes their monthly revenues, then learn how by visiting: http://www.mrinsidesales.com/

Thanks Mike, another great article! If you'd like to publish your articles here, then please contact us

A guide to 360

A brief introduction to 360 degree feedback systems and their potential uses, by David Cooper


1. What is 360 degree feedback?
360 degree feedback (or multi source feedback) was first introduced in its current form in the 1970s and has its roots in executive management and leadership performance improvement.

The overall aim of the feedback exercise is to raise awareness of the participant to their known and unknown strengths and additionally to appropriate opportunities for development and continuous performance improvement.


The underpinning concept is to provide participants with the opportunity to see themselves as others see them. Quantitative and qualitative feedback about HOW the person does their job is collected from multiple sources (normally their manager[s], colleagues, direct reports and customers). A feedback report is then produced that allows the participant to compare their view of themselves with the feedback from others. The majority of programmes will allow this to be an anonymous process (so that comment can be honest).

2. What should you expect from the latest generation of 360 tools?
Early iterations consisted of internally driven, generic, paper based questionnaires that were manually processed and thus prone to error, sometimes causing those participating to distrust the process. Today, the best 360 degree feedback tools are:

Fully automated - They use a rigorously tested online system that guarantees the accuracy, quality and confidentiality of the whole process.

Proven Questionnaires – They use questions that are valid and have a sound theoretical foundation, measuring the things that differentiate high performing managers from the rest.

Flexible - Enabling all aspects of branding, process implementation, client support, design, development and questionnaire / report formats to be easily adjusted to meet the client's needs.

User friendly - Today's feedback reports must be easily interpreted yet comprehensive; no longer is it acceptable to provide reports containing cryptic data that appear confusing, overwhelming and require an analyst to decipher! Feedback reports should be clear, concise, understandable and easy to interpret.

3. Where can 360 degree feedback tools add value?
360s are viewed as critical components in a wide range of management development interventions. Below are some of the most common applications where 360s are used to add real value:

Performance Coaching - Used at the beginning of a coaching relationship, a 360 degree feedback report can be a powerful 'accelerator' and 'alignment' tool. By clustering and prioritising any undesirable feedback results the subject and coach can quickly gain a clear picture of where their coaching sessions should focus, ensuring key development issues are recognised and addressed. This approach to performance coaching ensures a needs driven focus based on valid, factual, accurate behavioural information.

Personal Development - Used as part of a 'life coaching' programme or as an annual development tool, 360 feedback can be used to provide genuine insight into an individual's working style across a spectrum of leadership and management behaviours and into how their 'personal brand' is perceived. The feedback report can be used to provide clarity of direction for future personal development and career planning. We are also starting to see a trend for using 360s to supplement and provide qualitative evidence in CVs!

Performance Management - A common trend is to use 360 feedback to provide an 'all round view' of performance as part of the appraisal process. The feedback is used by line managers to inform appraisal ratings and contribute to the development discussion. Used in this way, the tool can also act as a management strength benchmark, as well as highlighting individual personal strengths and problem areas.

Development Programmes - Used at the beginning of a leadership or management development programme, 360 degree feedback tools can be used to:

Inform (or determine) programme content - The feedback data from a group of people can be combined into a Group Summary Report that provides an aggregated view of the group's strengths and key development areas. Using 360s in this way enables programme designers to effectively tailor their programme content to meet specific identified needs.

Individual alignment - Providing programme participants with feedback against what is expected of them in their role and then supporting them to convert their lower ratings into a meaningful personal development plan for the programme is a great way of making the programme 'real' for them and ensuring that they start their development journey with a clear picture of what success from the programme will look like for them.

Talent Management - Whilst 360 degree feedback provides insight into a manager's past and current behaviour, when the framework of questions used includes those attributes and qualities needed to work at more senior levels they can also acts an an indicator of future performance and growth potential. 360 feedback can be a powerful component within a talent management programme and is often used to:

- Identify those individuals who have the potential to operate at the next level.
- Highlight how ability and potential can be developed.
- Act as a progress measure.
- Provide evidence based data for any prospective 'chessboard' talent management process.

Team Feedback - Just as an individual 360 provides a snapshot of how the participant is seen by those they work with, a team 360 feedback report collects feedback from groups of stakeholders from across the organisation. There are tailored survey that can provide excellent feedback for use in team development sessions and can be used to help teams gain clarity of purpose and direction, understanding the expectations of stakeholders and providing a clear picture of a team's strengths and weaknesses.

To find out more about how Lumus™ 360 Degree feedback tools can support your development intervention, visit the Complete Trainer 360 resources or for bespoke solutions email davidcooper@lumus.com

What makes you special?

When it comes to being innovative, there are many training companies out there who claim that their programmes are unique. And, I fully believe it! No other programme on the planet will have quite the same content, quite the same presenter, and certainly not the same audience.

So what is a genuine ‘unique selling point’ for a training programme, and how do you go about making this distinction?

This was a challenge I discussed recently with John Giblin, Director of a company called Reach Another Level. His team have spent the last 18 months developing performance improvement programmes based on years of training and development experience. They run residential leadership programmes, experiential team development days (such as Tall Ship sailing events), and open programmes based on accelerating performance improvement in the workplace. Two of these programmes, The Big Picture and The £100,000 Crunch Buster Challenge, seem pretty unique in content, delivery and concept.

I looked at the descriptions on the website, and then used some search terms to see if I could find anything similar. I failed after the first ten pages of Google results. But, if you searched very specifically for these programme titles, you’d only find Reach Another Level, a company whose name matches one of the programme descriptions, and many other inappropriate references.

Switch it round. Looking at the audience for these programmes, the market is the same as for more familiar training programmes, but the challenge is to educate the audience into knowing that these solutions are going to be something they will find genuinely beneficial. That may seem like the challenge everyone faces, but when you take a product such as the forerunner to MP3 players, the Sony Walkman, until they invented it, we didn’t know we needed it!

But to return to marketing, the key is in education. Identify the right target audience; inform and explain your key differences; highlight the benefits that make your product or service stand way ahead of the competition. There’s the challenge – communicating what may be a new concept to an audience who are tired of words like ‘innovative’, ‘unique’ and ‘creative’. Don’t get too clever, and don’t alienate your audience by baffling them with concepts that they just can’t grasp quickly enough.

In this highly competitive world - one which the learning and development industry may find particularly squeezed by the global economy – standing out from the crowd is more important than ever.

Just because you think you are special, does not mean the client will think so. Think like the client, and you stand a better chance of really selling your USP.

Please add your comments - I'd love to hear what you think makes YOU special (or your products, of course!)