4 Simple Questions That Will Transform Your Sales Process

Jill Konrath

Have you ever tried to see the world through the eyes of your prospects?

If so, you have undoubtedly noticed that these poor people are overwhelmed. Their companies are understaffed. They are constantly being asked to do more with less. And they spend a lot of time fighting with their colleagues over scarce resources.

It’s a hard-knock life.

Jill Konrath understands the challenges that today’s busy decision makers face. At the Inside Sales Virtual Summit, she shared four important questions that will transform your sales process. You can watch Jill’s presentation, “Winning the New Sales Game,” in the YouTube video below.

1. Is this simple or complex?

If you’re trying to sell to crazy-busy people, keep in mind that complexity totally overwhelms them. As soon as things get complex, their eyeballs will glaze over and they will tune you out. Count on it.

Your prospects don’t rate you on a scale of 1 to 10. They look at your messaging and make a snap decision: Is it simple or complex?

Look at every step of your sales process and think about what you can do to simplify things.

Keep your emails, phone messages, demos, meetings and proposals as short and simple as possible. Break the process down into clear, logical steps. It’s better to move things along with a series of brief messages than to overwhelm people with complexity.

2. Are you seen as an invaluable resource?

Not sure how to break this to you, but your prospects have no time for sales clones. They think all salespeople are alike. And they’re kind of right because they get bombarded all day, every day with irrelevant voicemails and emails. You need to make yourself stand out. But how?

Turn yourself into an expert who constantly brings ideas, insight and information that your prospects find valuable. You can be an expert on LinkedIn and help people make decisions. You can respond to questions in groups. You can be an expert by sharing resources and links to articles that your prospects might find helpful.

What else can you do to help your prospects? Help them relax by showing them that you have helped other customers similar to them. It’s about credibility. It’s about knowing what comes next. It’s about guiding them. It’s about being someone to come to with questions.

When you make it easier for your prospects to work with you, you are becoming an invaluable resource.

3. Is your message aligned with your prospect’s objectives?

Your prospects aren’t just busy. They’re also distracted, forgetful and risk averse. It’s a wonder they get any work done at all. But they still care about their own objectives.

They all have numbers and goals they must meet. If you want any of their time, your solution better be in alignment with their goals.

If you’re selling to a CFO of a software company, you’ll need to align with different metrics than when you’re talking to a CMO of a medical device supplier.

You have to think about this throughout the entire sales process. After they decide to make a change, you need to align with different kinds of objectives. You need to align with a risk objective. You’ll want to be seen as the kind of company they want to do business with.

4. Is this a priority?

Your prospects don’t have time to plan and dream. They spend most of their energy just putting out fires. If something isn’t seriously broken, it’s probably not a top priority. And if it’s not their No. 1 priority, it can wait.

That puts the modern salesperson in a tough spot. How do you climb up their list of priorities?

Tie into trigger events. Create urgency by showing your solution is relevant to what is happening inside your prospect’s organization right now.

For more free resources that will help you improve your sales process, visit Jill Konrath’s website.

Get access to all of the Inside Sales Virtual Summit presentations by clicking the image below.