About Lesson
The Power Of Planning
- High Pay Off and Low Pay Off Activities
- Determine what activities are worth the extra effort and prioritize high pay off activities.
- It can be easy to get bogged down with low pay off activities because they can usually be solved quickly and don’t have a drastic impact on your sales cycle.
- Focusing on activities that move the needle the most will help you stay on top of which activities require your attention.
- Control
- Being in control of your time and bandwidth is a skill that needs to be constantly practiced.
- When you allow tasks, meetings or objectives to fall through the cracks your mind gets cluttered and your efficiency drops.
- Take the time to plan out what needs to be done and when. Set time based goals for yourself and take control of your time.
- Confidence
- No one will buy from you if you’re not confident in yourself, your company or your products.
- Show your dedication to customers by taking full responsibility for your business. Don’t make excuses—own up to your actions, good or bad. This honesty will build trust and confidence with customers, suppliers, and partners.
- Open Ended Questions vs Closed Ended
- Try to avoid asking “Yes” or “No” questions.
- Asking open ended questions forces people to take a moment to think about and formulate their answer instead of just giving a yes or no.
- Open ended questions often reveal answers to questions you haven’t asked or didn’t know you had.
- Example: What are some of the challenges you’re facing in your business today?
- SILENCE IS POWER!
- Let people fully answer and expound upon your question, don’t cut them off and don’t interrupt.
- The Power of Do-based Questions
- What are you DOING to close the gaps in current product offerings?
- What are you DOING to manage longer product lead times?
- What are you DOING to manage your customers’ expectations?
- What type of messages DO you need to deliver to prospects and customers?
- What DO my customers want to see?
- Controlling the Flow of a Conversation
- It’s important to be able to control the conversation when meeting with a prospect, customer or supplier. Make sure you have enough information to properly engage and extract the information you need.
- Prepare for the conversation by creating a list of questions or a pre-call plan.
- Less is more!
- Don’t interrupt and let silence work its magic. When people hear silence they want to fill it, let them! Who knows what information they might give you, you may discover pain points that wouldn’t have been addressed with a traditional line of questioning.
- Another good way to control the conversation is by bringing pricing or marketing materials that support your main points, but not handing them over or showcasing them until after your meeting/conversation.
- Do not give materials out at the beginning of a conversation or else you will lose that person’s attention and interest.
