What's the difference between Leads, Opportunities and Accounts

From time to time we'll get a question about the differences between Leads, Opportunities and Accounts.  Here's a quick blog post to help clear it up.

Lead -> Opportunity -> Accounts represents a progression in the sales pipeline.

So, in many cases a sale starts as a lead, becomes an opportunity and then an account in that order.

For example:

1. A lead usually represents someone who you think might want to buy something from you, but they’ve not actually said that they do yet. (you may not have even spoken with them yet.)
2. An opportunity could then be the next stage, where you’ve spoken with someone and they’ve indicated that they are in fact interested in what you’re selling.
3. An account would be finally that they’ve made the decision to buy from you and they’re now you’re customer.

Each of the forms in Simple Sales Tracking for these look very similar on purpose – to provide a smooth transition for that pipeline.

Are You An Order Taker or Order Maker?

Today I would like to drive home the importance of having a sales process for maximizing your sales results and increasing sales revenue.

This is the first part, having a process; however the most important step is training the salespeople in this process.

Many companies when looking at their sales teams subscribe to the old syndrome “if it aint broke don’t fix it!”. The sales team are meeting targets, they are maintaining market share – why should we spend money on training?

Well that is a fair question when times are buoyant and customers are spending. The challenge for many salespeople however is they have fallen into the trap of becoming order takers so when things become a bit tighter and the pressure comes on to develop new business there is no process in place for them to follow such as prospecting systems, contacting systems, presentation and follow up systems.

A friend of mind who is what I would consider the consummate sales professional was telling me about a sales manager he once worked for who stated if all he needed from his salespeople was someone to go around the customers and “pick up orders” he would employ Labrador dogs as they were far cheaper and a whole lot cuter!!

Let’s look at contacting systems for a start.

The majority of salespeople suffer from call reluctance because they don’t have a process for getting the appointment.

There are 5 basic objections you will encounter when phoning for a first appointment –

• Too busy
• Already have someone
• Send me some information
• Tell me about it now
• What do you want to see me for

Not knowing what to answer to any of the above prevents salespeople from making the calls and of course they are far too busy calling on existing clients they know and like to follow up new leads anyway.

So the first step in your contacting system is to develop a customized phone script with the answers to the above already worked out.

Next you need to develop a system for gathering the key information about the person/company you are calling. This might include contact details, position, company history, key markets etc.

Next you will need to have a contact management system for managing your appointments. This can be a simple as 3 x 5 cards in a prospect box or as complex as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. This will depend on the size of your business and your database.

Then of course you will have a diary system either hard copy or more common now some sort of PDA.

Quote of the Week –

When I prepare for a sales presentation, I try to think like my client and like my competitor. I try to pinpoint every objection that either of them could make to my presentation. I write these objections down, and then I figure out a way to respond to each one in three lines or less. I’ve given these “scripts” to sales reps, who then used them in their presentations. It’s staggering how even the most boring sales rep can become a great salesperson simply by learning to convey a few simple points. If you can move a customer so that he or she can’t argue against your point, then you’ve won.

Mark Jarvis

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group Limited

How Is Your Sales Process Working?

As we discussed in the last article, having a sales process for you and your team to follow has the biggest impact on the profitability of your business.

I was having a coffee with a very successful business coach recently and he commented that the greatest threat to the many businesses he had coached over the years was the lack of sales systems which resulted in inconsistent sales.

Rather than investing in developing salespeople to convert more of the inquiries coming into the business or even better giving them systems to proactively develop new leads and convert, many business owners throw more money into advertising and marketing in an attempt to generate more enquiries rather than convert more of the opportunities they are already getting.

I’m not suggesting you stop your marketing and advertising – what I am leading to is you need to maximize the enquiries you are currently getting by systemizing your sales process into a standard operating procedure (SOP)

Sales are like baking a cake – if you put the right ingredients/activities in in the right amounts and follow the recipe/sales process, you will end up in both cases with a great result.

Sales success like baking can be repeated once you have found the ingredients/processes that work.

For many salespeople flying by the seat of their pants and reinventing the recipe each time has become a way of life.

Studies have proven that the most successful salespeople in any field have set activities and processes that they do religiously. At a business forum I spoke at last week one of the other speakers spoke about “patterns of success” which Brian Tracey the famous Sales Guru calles “modeling” and in earlier days Napoleon Hill called “success steps”. What all three of them were talking about is that for every thing we wish to achieve in life somebody else has already achieved and found the best way to do it. Therefore for you to achieve your goal in the shortest time it is only a matter of following the processes that they have already found to be the best.

The first place to start in sales is with the numbers i.e. What is my sales target for the year?

If we know this we can work all our sales activities back from this.

The equation is:

Sales Target ÷ Average Sale = No. of sales for year
No of sales needed ÷ Conversion Ratio = No. of presentations
No. of presentations ÷ Referral Conversion Ratio = No. of referrals
No. of referrals ÷ 48 weeks = No. of referrals needed per week

e.g. 100,000 ÷ 1000 = 100 sales needed for year
100 ÷ 50% conversion = 200 presentations
200 ÷ 80% referral conversion = 250 referrals needed
250 ÷ 48 weeks = 5.2 referrals per week

Now we know how many referrals needed we can work out our prospecting activities.

Time to work out your numbers.

We will look at the next step in my next article.

Quote of the Week:

Chinese Proverb –

Man stand for long time with mouth open before roast duck fly in.

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group Limited.

Partner Program - Earn 20% for your Referrals

We are pleased to announce the Simple Sales Tracking - Partner Program is now public!

Do you know many small or medium sized business owners? Do you come into contact with many sales professionals?

As an affiliate partner, you'll be provided with a specific url that's unique to you. Anyone who clicks that url and signs up to use Simple Sales Tracking will have your affiliate ID associated with their account. Even if they click the url, but don't sign up, then come back another day and sign up, the tracking information will already be in place and you will get credit. 

For every person you refer who signs up, from this point onwards, you'll be issued a 20% commission every month for the duration of the customer's service in residual, passive income.

For example, if you were to refer a 10 person company that would generate $150 in revenue per month. Of that, you'd receive 20%; $30 per month for the duration of the service to that company.

If you were to refer one such company per month, by the end of the year you'd be receiving one cheque every month for $360.

Often, new users will initially sign up to use the Limited (free) Account. In this case, your partner ID is still attached to the company and in time if they sign up to a Full (paid) Account, you will begin receiving commissions at that point forward.

For further information or to register as a partner, visit http://www.simplesalestracking.com/AffiliateProgram.aspx or email partners@simplesalestracking.com.

Importing Contacts from a File

Importing contacts from any comma-delimited (.csv file name extension) file into Simple Sales Tracking can be done quickly and easily; however, there are a few steps that must be taken to ensure a successful import.

If you were to export your contacts from Outlook or many other similar type applications, the correct format should already exist.

If you want to create the comma-delimited file yourself, you can use the following template as a guide.  Download it here.

Save the template to your computer and open it in Microsoft Excel, or other type application and follow the format that's given.

Then, after the initial step of uploading your file to Simple Sales Tracking, you'll be asked to match up the information from your file with how it's stored in Simple Sales Tracking.  At this step there are further instructions on doing so.

And that's it!

Do You Have A Sales Process?

Every business says they have a sales process, however many of these businesses do not have a process so much as an evolved way of doing things. When asked what is working well and what is not the answers are vague at best. It is very hard to measure something that isn’t managed.

A major study in 2006 in the States found that 51% of businesses do not have a standard operating procedure (SOP) for their sales teams. From my personal experience over the past 14 years I would have to say the figure in New Zealand would have to be much higher.

The consequences for these businesses can be very expensive.

Problems caused by the lack of sales procedure include –

• Inconsistency in sales
Which means an inability to budget accurately

• Lack of sales systems and structure
Which means reduced closing ratios

• Poor client management systems
Which means lost clients and opportunities

• Poor reporting and measurement systems
Which means a lack of accountability

• Lack of a detailed sales plan
Which means average results

• Salespeople spending all their time servicing existing and favourite clients
Which means a lack of growth

• Lack of structured prospecting activity
Which means inconsistent growth

While these may not all apply to you, any one of these could be impacting your profitability.

The advantages of developing standard operating procedures for sales include –

A systemised process for selling
Which means – more consistent sales

A systemised prospecting system
Which means – increased numbers of qualified prospects through referrals

Increased closing ratios
Which means – most efficient use of time and increased profitability

Reduced sales cycle
Which means – most efficient use of time and increased profitability

System for maximising existing accounts
Which means – reduced costs of sales

A systemised presentation structure
Which means - increased motivation and confidence of the sales team

The key areas that need to be systemized are –

• Sales Planning
• Prospecting
• Presentations
• Follow-up and 90 day contact system

In these so called tougher times businesses are looking to reduce costs and increase efficiencies. The key area to increased efficiency is in sales.

By developing a systemized approach to the selling process you should be able to increase your sales team’s closing ratio by a minimum of 10%

What would a 10% increase in turnover mean to your business?

My point is it is vital to the success of any business to standardize their sales process. This starts with all of those involved in sales using the same processes and this is achieved through a customized sales training programme which then becomes a standard operating procedure for all the sales team.

Training is the first step – you learn process through training then practice and eventually it becomes habit.

We will begin to look at sales planning in my next article.

Quote of the Week:

"If you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always get what you’ve always got"
Action Step:
To record all your sales processes and identify key areas that need to be standardized.

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group Limited.

Ways to Double Your Sales in 2009

At the January workshop, the question was posed to the group - How do we double our sales income in 2009. The results follow:

1. Invest in training (see me)

2. Join BNI (Business Referral Group)

3. Have a goal – plan and strategy

4. Make more time – measure-measure-measure

5. Self appraisal (post presentation – what did I do right)

6. Increase the average price of the sale

7. Packaging the product with similar products or services

8. Review the marketing – measure-measure-measure

9. Brand awareness – have a focus to create this

10. Feedback to the client - systemize

11. Ask for the sale every time!! - don’t be scared to!

12. Elevating the product presentations

13. Sales Plan with prepared questions

14. Listen for the buying signals

15. Ask for referrals

16. Keep good customer records

17. Sales Systems – prospecting, presentation and sales planning.

18. Watch the Funnel – work your numbers – keep it full!

19. Prospecting existing customers to gain wallet share

20. Continually develop new COI’s

21. Networking – join clubs i.e. Chamber of Commerce to meet like minded people

22. Targeted marketing campaign

23. Allocate specific time for prospecting and planning

24. Improved customer contact with existing customers – 90 day rule

25. Up-selling to existing clients

26. Well developed business plan with defined goals and targets

27. Refine and follow proven sales processes


The real formula to double your income in 2009 is to get every one of your clients to refer another client just like them to you and for you to covert them to a new client – simple isn’t it!

It is only simple if you have a process to follow – develop your systems!

Next workshop is on Wednesday 18 March at 4.30-5.30 at MR Print in Hastings, New Zealand. It does pay to book as we only had three spare seats left at the last workshop.

Remember these workshops are free to current and past clients and those who may be contemplating undertaking training with our company. Clients are welcome to bring guests.

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group Limited.

 

Web to Lead Forms Now Available

You speak - we listen. Many of you have requested a capability known as Web to Lead Forms. Over the weekend we introduced this new capability and in this newsletter we'll walk you through what they are.

Web to Lead Forms provides a way for you to include a form on your website to capture both new contacts and new leads and have that information stored directly into Simple Sales Tracking. Each time a new piece of information is collected, you're automatically notified via email.

Step 1 - Build the Form

Login to Simple Sales Tracking and click the new "Web to Lead" link at the top of the page. From there, select each field you want to include in your form and optionally change the text that describes each one. Once complete, click the "Build" button.

Step 2 - Preview the Completed Form

After clicking the "Build" button, further down the page you'll see a preview of what your new Web to Lead form looks like. If you need to make further changes, do so, then click the "Build" button again.

Step 3 - Copy and Paste the Html Code

You'll notice next to the Preview a textbox labelled Html Code with some text in it. Copy that Html Code into the code of a webpage on your website and the form will be there.

Step 4 - Enable Web to Lead Forms

As a security measure, your account administrator (the first account created by default when you signed up), will have to select a check box on the Admin page in order to enable the Web to Lead forms to work.

You're Done! Create as many Web to Lead forms as you like. Remember to test them to make sure they're capturing the data the way you want it.

Please note Web to Lead Forms are available to Full Account holders only. If you're using a Limited Account, consider upgrading today!

Have You Benchmarked Your Sales Process?

Most people tell me they can sell once they get in front of a prospect, however if they don’t get the appointment they never get the opportunity to sell to anyone.

There are two parts to a sale - the first is getting the appointment, the second is everything that happens after that.

The point is if you don’t get the first part right nothing happens!

Brian Tracey talks about identifying what he calls your critical success factors. These are the activities that will determine either success or failure in your chosen field. He suggested there are generally 5-7 of these for most of us. In sales this could include such things as detailed preparation, prospecting, presentation process, following a sales plan to name a few.

People often ask me if I have worked with other businesses the same as theirs and in most cases I am able to answer yes however the point I am quick to make is that the sales “process” is the same for just about every product or service.

You need to:

• Develop your sales plan
• Identify the type of people you suspect may have a need for your product or service
• Do your research
• Arrange an appointment
• Present your questions
• Establish the return on investment
• Ask for the business
• Deliver on all promises
• Keep regular contact
• Gain referrals
• Resell to new needs

As you can see this is probably how you develop new business using some or all of these steps if you are a pro-active salesperson.

The key to this however is developing processes around each of these areas so they happen on a consistent basis day in day out, week in week out.

The most successful companies benchmark their sales process to ensure consistent sales growth. The definition of Benchmarking is -

“A systematic process of comparing the activities and work processes of an organization or department with those of outstanding organizations or departments in order to identify ways to improve performance.”

Benchmarking programmes commonly include the following stages - identifying the area requiring benchmarking and the process to use, collecting and analyzing the data, implementing changes and monitoring and reviewing improvements.

From benchmarking, best practices can be developed for each process. This is particularly applicable for the sales process.

Do you have a set process for each of the eleven steps I have identified above?

A quick quiz -

Rate yourself between 1 - 10 for each of the steps above, 1 being no process at all and 10 being absolutely satisfied you have a system to ensure consistent delivery every time.

Your lowest scoring activity will limit and determine your level of success in sales in all the other critical sales activities. So if you don’t have a set process for arranging appointments then you will miss many opportunities. Likewise if you can consistently get the appointment but don’t have a process to advance or close the sale once again missed opportunities.

I will be continuing with this subject in my next article.

Quote of the Week -

“There’s no magic to it, and you don’t need a lot of natural talent. What you need is a disciplined, organized approach to selling. If you have that, you’ll outperform the great salesman who doesn’t understand the process every time. Selling can definitely be learned.”

Steve Bostic

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group Ltd.

Are You Continually Improving Your Sales Skills?

In a recent article I mentioned the importance of “sharpening the saw” from a concept which Steven Covey talks about. Due to requests I have included the story below which illustrates the importance of taking time out to refresh and sharpen your selling skills.

There were two forestry workers, who were very competitive axemen, who decided they would have a wood chopping competition to see who was the fittest and the better axeman. The rules were simple – whoever chopped the most wood on the day would be declared the undisputed winner. Both were perched a fair distance from each other – barely able to see the figure of the other person. The chopping commenced at dawn. From time to time they both took a look at each other to see how much wood was being chopped. By mid morning the contest was closed.

One of the axemen stopped for about 20 minutes. The other kept chopping to gain an advantage. During mid-day the axeman who took a break in the morning took another break. I’m sure the other guy was thinking, “I’ll get him now”.

They kept chopping. In the middle of the afternoon the break-meister took still another break. The other guy just kept chopping. When the sun had set, the axeman who hadn’t stopped once looked at what he had chopped and felt he had the advantage. He walked some distance to greet his opponent. When he had arrived – he almost went into shock at the sight of the opponent’s chopped wood – which was substantially more than his own. He grumbled, “How did this happen, you stopped chopping three times for breaks and lunch, while I kept chopping. I just don’t understand what happened.” In a soft and deliberate voice the winner said “yes I did stop three times, but you see, it was to sharpen my axe.” Abraham Lincoln once said, “If I had six hours to chop down a big tree, I’d take two hours to sharpen my axe.” You don’t have to be Abraham Lincoln to sharpen your axe.

There are a lot of impersonators out there – pretending to be professional salespeople. They are devoid of any selling skills and basic fundamentals and certainly wouldn’t dream of spending any of their own money on personal development.

Every day you’d better make it a priority to read books and articles, listen to CD’s while driving from account to account, sharpening your axe, (I mean your selling skills) improving your attitude and developing mini-systems, creating your own competitive advantage. The simple truth is, if you don’t sharpen your axe, you could be working with a dull blade and worse still working for the opposition i.e. presenting to prospects and priming them for your competitors to close. The key point to all this is we need to be constantly looking at better ways to improve our skills in whichever field we choose to work if we are to retain our competitive advantage.

The benefits are:

Sales Confidence
- Bigger closing ratios
- Increased Profits

Staff Retention
- Client continuity
- Reduced costs of recruitment

Reduced costs to make sales e.g. higher conversion ratio
- Focused prospecting
- Higher qualified referrals

Many companies can’t find money for training yet spend thousands on advertising and marketing to try to attract new business, instead of converting higher percentage of enquiries they are already receiving.

I will continue with this topic in my next article.

Quote of the Week:

Winners evaluate themselves in a positive manner and look for their strengths as they work to overcome weaknesses.

Zig Ziglar

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group Limited.

Are You a Sales Seminar Enthusiast?

Last time we began to look at the need for salespeople to become more professional in their approach to selling.

Gone are the days when, as one famous commentator put it “all you had to do was show up to make a sale”.

If you do this in today’s selling environment you are not in the sales profession you are in the gambling profession and as we all know not too many of these people survive. Hence the need to up skill regularly.

I used to be a seminar junkie – anything to do with personal or business development I’d be there in the front row. The one thing I found was that these people including Michael Gerber – author of The E Myth, Mikhail Gorbachev, Al Ries, Brian Tracey etc. all seemed to be very good at increasing your motivation temporarily and giving you concepts without actually giving you the “how to”.

Zig Ziglar has a very good quote regarding motivation.

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last, well neither does bathing, that’s why we recommend it daily”

Coming back to my point – most sales seminars are of the motivational type and are usually entertaining. The down side is that you’ve forgotten most of what you heard by the time you get back to work.

Motivation comes from confidence which comes from knowledge which in turn comes from training. For those of us involved with sales, the two types of training we need to focus on are - 1. Product Knowledge 2. Selling Skills

It has been found that lack of training is one of the biggest inhibitors to increasing sales and margins.

Still on the subject of motivation the salespeople themselves need to want to improve their skills. Some believe that they are already so good at what they do that it would be a waste of their time to undergo sales training. They probably worked their way up from retail sales or landed the job by chance and view their work as a job to be done rather than a profession to develop in or they are happy for their companies to organize training as long as they aren’t required to change what they are doing now.

A study done on millionaires in the states some years ago revealed some very interesting statistics. Movie Stars, Entertainers, and Sports Stars only accounted for 1% of all the millionaires in America. More importantly over 70% of the millionaires had made it through sales careers. It would be interesting to see the results of a similar study conducted here.

I will continue with this subject and how to gain the most from developing yourself and your team through training in my next article.

Quote of the Week.

There’s no magic to it, and you don’t need a lot of natural talent. What you need is a disciplined, organized approach to selling. If you have that, you’ll understand the process every time. Selling can definitely be learned.

Steve Bostic

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group Limited

How Professional Are Your Sales Team?

Over the last few months we have been looking at the importance of developing a great presentation through preparation, planning, developing a great questioning process and how to ask for the business.

All this theory sounds good however the challenge for many salespeople is they believe because they have been in sales for many years there is nothing new they need to learn, after all they have “x” number of years of sales experience. What they tend to have is one years sales experience repeated “x” times.

Steven Covey talks about the need to constantly “sharpen the saw” as one of the 7 habits of successful people. What he is talking about is taking time for personal and professional development.

Many professionals are obliged by their professional bodies to invest so many hours each year in these areas.

The definition of professional is: Member of profession. Somebody whose occupation requires extensive education or specialized training and a high standard of ethical behaviour.

Salespeople can certainly differentiate themselves by becoming professional at what they do.

I often ask teams I work with who their favourite sales author is. More often than not I am met with a stony silence – interesting.

I was reading an article by Dave Kahle a renowned sales trainer in which he states that in his experience only one in twenty salespeople he had worked with had spent $25 of their own money on their own improvement in the previous 12 months.

The point I am driving at is in today’s selling environment only the most professional salespeople will survive and do consistently well.

If we look at the most successful people in business and spot one of the commonalities they have it is they are constantly seeking perfection in their chosen field through personal and professional development and practice, practice, practice…

One of the greatest myths about the sales profession is the salespeople can learn on their own out in the field as long as they have good product knowledge. Hence the focus in many companies on product training with sales stills training tacked on the side.

You wouldn’t hire someone and immediately put them in charge of a $200,000 machine and yet many companies put reps on the road with minimal sales processes and skill sets and send them off to see prospects that could have a lifetime value of $200,000 plus.

There are very few “natural born salespeople” in this world – 95% of the most successful salespeople have been professionally trained and follow a process.

The majority of untrained field salespeople perform at a fraction of their potential because of lack of systems.

I used to be a keen shooter and one day I dismantled a gun to thoroughly clean it. When I began to reassemble it there was a spring system that wouldn’t go back in. Being the determined person I am I spent hours working on it and after days of frustration I gave up and took it to the gunsmith who reassembled it in two minutes!

The point is he was a thoroughly trained professional whereas I thought I knew what I was doing – so it is with many salespeople who have learned on the job.

I will continue with this very important topic in my next article.

Quote of the Week –

You are what you are and where you are because of what’s gone into your mind.
You can change what you are and where you are by changing what goes into your mind.
Zig Ziglar

Brett Burgess is a Sales Trainer and Programme Developer for Sales Impact Group Limited

Brett Burgess Rebrands and Launches New Website: www.salesimpactgroup.co.nz

As most of you have read, Brett has been contributing his thought provoking and timely articles to our blog for some time now. 

He and his team have recently rebranded their company as the Sales Impact Group.  If you're looking for sales training or consulting in New Zealand, Brett and his team are the ones to call.

 

Continuous Improvement Resources

If you've not already noticed - in addition to our product offering, we also provide ongoing sales strategy articles from program developer, facilitator and author Brett Burgess. Articles are timely, extremely relevant and can help you apply profound improvements to your sales strategy.

Click here to get the RSS Feed. Articles are also posted on the home page of the Simple Sales Tracking website under Recent Blog Posts.

A sampling of his recent articles include:

A Question of Questions

What Is It Costing You Not To Have a Systemised Sales Process?

Where Are Your Questions Leading?

Do You Ask for the Business?

Whose Perception Counts Anyway?

We have been looking at why asking the right questions is so important in the sales process - well here's a question for you.

How can you tell what your prospects are actually thinking?

The answer is simple - ask them good questions and they will give you all the information you need to help them. Wasn't it Freud who said "If you ask enough questions the truth will eventually come out".

It's vitally important that you know what your prospects are thinking - what their problems and needs really are, and what's important to them - so you can tailor the best solution for them.

If you want your prospects to think about the convenience your product or service provides, ask a good, open-ended question about that topic. While the prospect is talking, you know his/her mind is focused on that topic. When you want to focus the customers mind on something else, ask a question on that new topic.

Never ask a buyer any questions about a subject you don't wish them to think about.

This may sound obvious however many salespeople ask questions about current providers and budgets. What happens in the buyers mind when they think - we have spent our budget this year?

Think of questions that will enable you to uncover your prospects' wants and needs and potentially give you the opportunity to sell him/her your solution(s).

The best sales questions to ask prospects are the ones that get your prospects talking.

Once you ask your questions you can employee your ears before you engage your mouth. Your questions put you in to an automatic listening mode. Not asking questions gets you, the wrong person, talking too much.

Being a good listener is the fastest way to increase your sales - it also happens to be the best way.

No one ever listened their way out of a sale.

Guide to Preparing Good Questions

. Be sure your questions are open-ended. You're not a lawyer. You're an explorer. You won't learn much when you ask yes/no type questions. Remember your goal is to get your prospects and customers talking.

. Be sure your questions are personalized and tailored to the person you're talking to. A good question shows interest and reveals your concern for the buyer's current situation.

. Great questions also help create trust and rapport

. Prepare your questions in writing. A really good question starts in your mind and ends up on paper. If it's not on paper you can't make it better.

. You can make every word count by eliminating all unnecessary words from the question you are crafting. Make sure every word in your question adds value to the questions.

. The right questions can demonstrate your understanding of the prospects business and build great credibility for you in the prospects eyes

. Focus on brevity. If you want to be clear, you must be concise. Less is always more when it comes to a carefully worded question. Short and sweet is better than long and sour.

. Unfortunately, what most salespeople don't get is, your choice of words during a sales call is even more important hence the need to pre-plan your questions.

. Its no use having the right answer if you aren't asking the right questions

. Remember - Never tell a buyer anything you can ask them!!!

Quote of the Week -
"If you are speaking and not getting a reaction, well you are just making a speech"
Author Unknown

Have a successful week!

Brett

BRETT BURGESS is a sales trainer and programme developer for Moss and Associates International.