subject: An Alternative Way To Sales Success [print this page] A sales professional has two basic sets of questions with which they should gain competence: the questions to ask customers and prospective clients; and questions to ask yourself.
Whatever questions we ask ourselves are just as important, if not more so, than those we ask our customers and prospective clients. This goes back to the ultimate power of a question it redirects our thinking. Just as a good question directs the customers thinking, so, too, does a good question direct our own thinking. We know that sound thinking is the crucial success skill for a professional sales person. One way to make an outstanding career for yourself, bring greater results into your organization, and provide more abundantly for your family is by out thinking your competition. Successful thinking done methodically is the critical competitive skill, and yet few sales people routinely engage in good thinking. As Bertrand Russell once said, Most people would rather die than think. In fact, they do.
A simple definition of good thinking for a sales person is: knowing how to ask yourself the right questions, in the right sequence, at the right times, and then writing down the answers. Yes, it sounds simple, and it is. Like so much else in the world of the sales person, the power is in the execution. Later we will discuss what it means to ask yourself the right questions, in the right sequence, at the right times but at this point I want to make the case for writing down the answers.
Whether you use some electronic means or merely pen and paper, it is one of the disciplines of good thinking. The very act of writing will focus you on the words which formulate your responses. While you can be unclear and indefinite as long as the answer is in your mind, when you write the answers down you must select the precise words to go on paper. Writing is a discipline that forces you to think specifically one of the tenets of good thinking. Next, putting it in print represents an act of commitment. Not only does it serve as a commitment after all, you wrote it but also as a reminder that you have already traveled this path before and come up with an answer.
