Lack of preparation
Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2025 6:43 am
This is how stakeholders feel when you start an exploratory conversation and ask difficult questions that go too deep. When strangers start asking hard, annoying questions, people instinctively put up an emotional wall.
As a salesperson, you are the stranger. If you ask questions that make stakeholders uncomfortable before you have established an emotional connection and trust with them, their emotional barriers will go up, and they will reject you.
The key to breaking through emotional barriers is to ask questions that stakeholders can easily answer and are happy to answer at the beginning of the exploratory conversation. This is why you must research your stakeholders ahead of time and prepare simple questions that they are happy to answer.
The more interested you are in your stakeholders, the more they will feel valuable and important. The better they feel, the more they will want to talk. The more they talk and the more you listen, the more they will feel connected to you. When you connect with them, you are empowered to ask deeper questions.
Pump and Raid
The most destructive sales behavior during exploratory conversations is the annoying tendency to poke stakeholders for information with interrogative, closed-ended questions and then launch into a sales pitch at the first opportunity. This habit, born out of impatience and poor impulse control, can cause you to miss important leads, damage relationships, and lose sales opportunities.
Here’s how it works. During discovery, while answering a question, your stakeholder says, “We’ve been having a hard time dealing with (fill in the blank).” Instead of asking deeper, exploratory questions to gain clarity and understanding, you start proposing solutions. Once you start proposing solutions, your ears stop, and so do your stakeholders.
The key to an effective discovery conversation is to ask patient lebanon telegram data questions, encourage stakeholders to speak up, and get all the information on the table before making any recommendations or offering solutions. In longer-cycle sales, discovery may involve multiple meetings with multiple stakeholders before any demonstrations or recommended solutions are offered.
Discovery is the language of questions. But effective discovery doesn’t just happen. To be effective and valuable, you must do your research and plan your approach before you ask your first question. Trust us, when it comes to discovery, winging it is foolish.
The worst mistake in the discovery process is failing to prepare for the discovery meeting. Your lack of preparation will show through in the questions you ask. Stakeholders will know that you didn’t put enough effort into your research and questions. You’ll come across as a shabby person, not a professional consultant. You’ll waste time, not create value.
As a salesperson, you are the stranger. If you ask questions that make stakeholders uncomfortable before you have established an emotional connection and trust with them, their emotional barriers will go up, and they will reject you.
The key to breaking through emotional barriers is to ask questions that stakeholders can easily answer and are happy to answer at the beginning of the exploratory conversation. This is why you must research your stakeholders ahead of time and prepare simple questions that they are happy to answer.
The more interested you are in your stakeholders, the more they will feel valuable and important. The better they feel, the more they will want to talk. The more they talk and the more you listen, the more they will feel connected to you. When you connect with them, you are empowered to ask deeper questions.
Pump and Raid
The most destructive sales behavior during exploratory conversations is the annoying tendency to poke stakeholders for information with interrogative, closed-ended questions and then launch into a sales pitch at the first opportunity. This habit, born out of impatience and poor impulse control, can cause you to miss important leads, damage relationships, and lose sales opportunities.
Here’s how it works. During discovery, while answering a question, your stakeholder says, “We’ve been having a hard time dealing with (fill in the blank).” Instead of asking deeper, exploratory questions to gain clarity and understanding, you start proposing solutions. Once you start proposing solutions, your ears stop, and so do your stakeholders.
The key to an effective discovery conversation is to ask patient lebanon telegram data questions, encourage stakeholders to speak up, and get all the information on the table before making any recommendations or offering solutions. In longer-cycle sales, discovery may involve multiple meetings with multiple stakeholders before any demonstrations or recommended solutions are offered.
Discovery is the language of questions. But effective discovery doesn’t just happen. To be effective and valuable, you must do your research and plan your approach before you ask your first question. Trust us, when it comes to discovery, winging it is foolish.
The worst mistake in the discovery process is failing to prepare for the discovery meeting. Your lack of preparation will show through in the questions you ask. Stakeholders will know that you didn’t put enough effort into your research and questions. You’ll come across as a shabby person, not a professional consultant. You’ll waste time, not create value.