"I ask too many questions." "I ask too few questions." "My questions are lame." "I felt way too needy asking those questions." "That one question was really good.... oh wait, this time it wasn't." "I've no idea what to ask next."
That's how I've thought about my own sales discovery questions at various times over my career. How do you think about your own discovery process? Or...what does your boss tell you about it?
I've found that sellers tend to ask too many situational or factual questions and not enough impact or outcomes questions.
Situational questions: how many, how long, what do you use, how happy are you... etc
Impact questions: what's the business impact of that problem, who is impacted by that problem, how do you measure the impact
Outcome questions: if you were to fix it what would happen, who would be grateful, how would you measure success
Between informal meetings, speed date events with executives, meetings with leaders...Time is short. And valuable!
So, what questions do you ask to make your time with the prospect count? What questions get to the most valuable conversation as fast as possible? What questions are the most appropriate for the level of the person you are meeting with?
Giving yourself just 3sales discoveryquestions will ensure you are valuable, effective, and focused.
Check out salesbluebird.com for more tips and big ideas about how to grow sales faster at your B2B cyber security company.
