Doing a good job of discovery and listening are so important to buyers, yet so many sellers are struggling to get this right, especially in today’s now digital and remote selling environment.
In this interview with Deb Calvert, an Inductee in the Sales Hall of Fame, Keynote Speaker and Sales Effectiveness Consultant as President of People First Productivity Solutions, we discuss what makes for “good discovery”, especially how it is more a dialogue person to person than a qualification or diagnostic.
In her thoughtful answers, Deb outlines the five essential discovery elements, and exactly how to make sure your sellers get discovery right.
On falling back on old methods…
“I think it’s an attempt to offer value and substance. I think people are a little bit uncomfortable with being the center of attention Because they can see themselves to and that’s not comfortable, but fundamentally, I really do think this is a misunderstanding about what buyers want to see. So, Sellers, think of it just like any other conversation. Your face-to-face with somebody, do you want to be comfortable. Do you want to be nimble with that face-to-face communication, even if it’s a video. I would say just don’t be so eager to do show-and-tell, because that show and tell, the slides that you have, that demo that you’re gonna do… By its very nature, that’s generic and it’s lower value, and you’re completely missing that opportunity to establish a human to human connection. And buyers want that. And they need it, and when you’re masking your face, you’re missing a huge opportunity to differentiate yourself.
There are skills for asking quality questions. In the book Discover Questions it gives the purposes of asking questions, and the ways of asking questions, so there are skills that you can develop. But even before that, especially with people who are newer to selling, it’s about truly understanding what you’re supposed to accomplish when you are asking the questions in the discovery phase.”
“The behaviors that they prefer (buyers)…that blueprint of the behaviors they respond favorably to are surprisingly not stereo typically selling behaviors. They’re more like what we would define as leadership behaviors, and buyers do want the sellers they work with to lead them. They want to be guided to something new and different.”
To learn more, click here for the full episode! https://open.spotify.com/episode/6MdtV5qtM8i2VFyQIFVTHn
#remoteselling #salesenablement #digitalselling #b2b
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