Sales Pop Quiz Results

You should not have checked any boxes.

1) Despite all of the training we have had telling us that "Good questions deserve good answers", one of the most common and most damaging mistakes that many salespeople make, day in and day out, is providing in-depth answers before they know why their prospect asked the question. Doing that usually lowers the odds that a sale will happen and most often falls into the category of "Unpaid Consulting".
If you sometimes catch yourself answering too many questions too soon, reprogram your self-talk with the core belief that says "The intent of their question is always more important than my answer".

2)  There are really only four possible outcomes to any sales call. A Real Yes. A Real No. A Real Future. And a "Let's Pretend". And you know which one is completely unacceptable...the "Let's Pretend". Real No's happen...usually because for some reason there is just not a fit. Everyone is not a prospect. There is a poster in our training room that says "Some will. Some won't. So what. Next.". That thought may serve as a good reality check the next time you take a real no too personally.

3)   We find that most salespeople never achieve their true potential, or even fail, not because they can't sell, but because they won't. And unfortunately, most often, they never even recognize those hidden weaknesses that are causing the frustrations and the failures and preventing them from consistently doing what they know is right.

4)  There is a one hundred percent corellation between how a salesperson buys and how they expect their prospects and customers to buy from them. And no, you can't just flip your hat from buyer to seller and change those deeply embedded attitudes.
It's called a "non-supportive buying habit" and if you have it, it's probably costing you a lot of money. Good salespeople are comfortable making decisions when they are in a buying situation themselves.

5)   David Sandler said, "Sell today. Educate tomorrow.". Selling is not telling. Educating is intellectual. People buy for personal, compelling and emotional reasons. Educating should be saved for the presentation... after the qualifying and the selling are virtually done. Unpaid consulting is not only unprofitable, it also greatly reduces the odds of actually closing the sale. 

6)  Some salespeople spend their entire careers believing that "It's always about price.". And more often than not, they're wrong. And both the salesperson and the buyer lose because of it. Don't be a victim of the "Price Myth".

7)  Many of the traditionally trained salespeople still believe that asking a prospect for the order is somehow better than helping them to discover that they may truly find a win-win outcome with your solution. If you do it right, the only close you'll ever need to use is "What do we need to do next?".

8)  Right idea... but a bad way to ask the question. Most times when a salesperson asks, "Are you the decision-maker?", it hooks the prospects's ego. And along with it, the answer, "Of course I am.".
The A-Player salesperson learns to start with questions about the prospect's decision-making process first, and gets down to the who questions later.

9)  Simply put, the price and money issues should be addressed before the presentation happens, not after. If you have a strong belief that this just can't happen, you may be creating your own outcomes.

10)  Don't misunderstand, relationships are good. But relationships are far from being the most important element in selling. Especially in today's business environment.
So what is the most important? Our answer might surprise you. We'd enjoy the opportunity to talk about it with you.

So how did you fare?

Now that you have a little better sense of of some of our basic concepts and beliefs about selling, e-mail us at info@starkassociates.com or call us at (314) 576-2866 and give us a heads-up that you'd like to talk.

We do not assume that you need our help or even that if you did, we'd be the best fit for you. You are the one who can best make that call.

But, if there is a fit, we have seen some exciting outcomes from working together with committed clients to achieve measureable and sustainable results.