Three Everyday Sales Questions That Spur Action

"So, what's happening with XYZ, Inc.? What's the next step with this prospect?"This is the question that many salespeople dread to hear from their managers.What’s even worse is when your manager knows the answer and you don’t.To avoid being caught in that situation you have continually think about the opportunities that you’re pursuing.The most successful salespeople I know are always, at some level, ruminating about the deals they have in the works. They have a command of all the details of every sales opportunity and subconsciously let them tumble around in the back of their mind, searching for the winning strategy and tactics. They don't have an “off” switch.Three Everyday Sales QuestionsHere are three sales questions that you should be answering every day about every qualified prospect you have in your pipeline. They will help eliminate any uncertainty you have about the next steps you should be taking:

1. What can I do for the customer right now, this minute, today, that will have the maximum sales value?
2. What can I do today that will create value for the customer and differentiate my company and product from the competition?
3. What information does the customer still require from me in order to make an informed purchase decision in the least time possible?

What makes selling so much fun is that it can be a challenging intellectual pursuit. It requires creativity and flexibility of thought to adapt sales strategies and tactics to real-time changing conditions.Why is this important? Start with the fact that buying isn’t a linear process. You can create a detailed account plan for a sales opportunity, but your prospect's buying process will necessarily change with each step they complete. You can have a plan, consisting of steps 1 through 6, that you believe will take you through the customer's buying process. But then, as soon as the customer has completed step 1, the situation will probably change and make your plans moot.Be Prepared for ChangesI wrote a while back about the need to think of the customer's buying process in terms of Heisenberg's famous principle of uncertainty. Heisenberg was able to prove through experimentation that the act of observing a process necessarily changes the outcome. I believe that the same is true in sales. The completion of each step in a customer’s buying process influences the customer's requirements and decision criteria moving forward.Salespeople who mentally lock away their customers at the end of the day probably won’t notice these changes. They will operate as if their sales cycle and their prospects' buying cycles are static processes that proceed in a linear fashion from Point A to Point B. They’ll lose out to the salesperson who recognizes the vagaries and flexibility of those cycles and is keeping his or her sales process aligned with the buyer’s buying process by continually asking and answering the three questions above.Sales is Not An Open-Book TestA client of mine once had a salesperson named Ty. Ty was always operating in a reactive mode with his prospects. It seemed like he was always chasing his active opportunities instead of anticipating and leading them. The problem was that he didn't store any details of his sales opportunities in his head. He was an avid user of the company's CRM system, and every bit of information about his prospects disappeared from his mind the moment he updated their contact records. He couldn’t recall details about his accounts without referring to the CRM system, and he wondered why he was always playing catch-up with his prospects and customers. Ty thought sales was an open-book test. For top performers, it doesn't work that way.It takes just three thoughts to paint a clear picture of what you need to do next to help your customers move closer to making a decision.