I listen to a lot of sales calls. Recordings of client sellers in calls/meetings. Sometimes webcasts where someone is talking about call strategies and going through role plays. This week, it was on creating urgency with questions. So much of it begins to look like a game of pint pong.
Question….Answer
Ask…Respond
Query….Reply
Inquire…Response
Probe….Answer (though I seldom see this level of questioning)
Ask…Explain
Back…Forth
Ping…Pong
As I watch these discussions, I start to feel my head turning slightly to the questioner, then to the responder, then back to the questioner, then back…… Kind of like a ping pong game or tennis match.
Every once in a while, listening to sellers go through this back and forth, I stop them and ask, “What did that response mean to you?” Sometimes they say, “I needed the information or data…” Sometimes, “I was looking for a certain answer…..” Sometimes, “I’m supposed to ask the question….” Sometimes it’s a shrug of the shoulders, “I don’t know….”
Sometimes, I ask, “What did the question mean to the customer? What did the response mean to the customer?”
Too often, I’m met with shrugs, “I’m not really sure….”
Questions and answers are purely about the exchange of information. The engagement between the questioner and responder is very low. Once a question is answered, the moment is over. We might move to another question, but never develop deep engagement with the person we are questioning. And, in turn, they never develop any deep engagement with us.
But what happens when we start to think about conversations, rather than questions and answers?
A conversation is a shared experience, between the participants. It drives deeper understanding, learning, discovery. Conversations tend to be dynamic, evolving, and fluid. In great conversations, we find the the development of new ideas, and each idea builds on the previous ideas.
If you look at many of the popular selling methodologies, they are all focused on conversations–SPIN, Consultative Selling, Value Based Selling, GAP, MEDDIC, Challenger and others. But despite this, so many of our sales calls and scripts tend to be verbal ping-pong.
Most importantly, in complex B2B buying, our customers are looking for conversations.
They are trying to more deeply understand what they face, the impact of the problem, root causes, risks, what others have done, what the should do, how they should navigate the process. The are looking to learn that which they don’t know, and what it means to them. These aren’t solved in ping-pong sales calls, the are addressed through deep conversations and engagement.
One of the challenges, however, too many sellers have, is they can’t hold up their end of the conversation. They know how to play ping-pong, but they don’t know how to go deeper in their questioning, challenging, discovery, collaboration on the issues. They don’t have a deep enough understanding of the customer or of the problems customers are addressing to drill down into a collaborative discussion. Or they simply lack the curiosity and caring to engage in the conversation in the first place.
Complex B2B buying/selling is all about having high impact, collaborative conversations!
Can you hold up your end of the conversation?
Afterword: This is the AI discussion this post. This conversation surprised me, it’s actually far better than the article. The characters dive deeply into how we hold high impact/collaborative conversations. It’s one of the best of these AI generated discussions, I’ve seen created. I know you will enjoy it!
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