As a sales coach, I am always amazed to find that most sales reps spend more time talking to prospects than listening. These sales reps have good intentions, but without realizing it, they often miss a great sales opportunity because they have not listened to what the prospect really needs. And of course, the best way to discover what a prospect really needs — and to qualify whether there’s a real opportunity to pursue — is to ask good questions, then actually listen to the answers like…

Sales managers need to coach their salespeople to leverage existing client relationships by gaining access to other decision makers and influencers. When your sales reps win accounts and develop good rapport with a particular contact within an organization, they may gravitate towards that relationship and become protective of it. But they need to be careful not to be too protective or even complacent.

For various reasons sales reps are often hesitant about establishing new contact relationships with existing clients. The most common being that they’ll step on their key contact’s toes and possibly offend them. Or, a contact may say, “Oh, you don’t need to contact anyone here but me,” — a red flag signaling that the sales rep would be better off reaching out to others in the organization.  

Coach your sales team to achieve the right outcomes with this sales training tip: Make customers commit to achieving a solid outcome to each sales call. If the salesperson doesn’t get an immediate agreement on an order because multiple steps are involved, that’s okay. This sales person should not stop at leaving some literature and promising another call. He should always have a purpose — a call to action.

It could be as simple as the sales rep scheduling follow-up meetings with other parties, or an appointment to return to demonstrate a product or service to the customer, or bringing the customer and his boss to visit and evaluate the salesperson’s facility — whatever it takes for the sales rep to encourage customers to continue the sales process by getting them to invest time and or resources, demonstrating a willingness to keep the sale moving forward.

What if a good sales person takes pride in his premium product or service, only to be told his price is too high? It doesn’t have to be a problem if he’s already done his homework and asked great sales questions of all the right people in the organization. By then, the sales rep understands his customer’s needs and issues, and where the customer wants to go. Because the sales rep understands, he’s easily able to justify why the customer must make that initial investment in the rep’s solution over competitive choices. There’s always the implication that the customer chooses the cheaper option at his own risk.