Sales managers and leaders can impact the quality of the sales conversation and win ratios by asking the right questions at the right time. Successful sales leaders have a solid deal review guide as part of their Sales Leadership Playbook. The questions can be used during pre-call planning, as part of 1:1 coaching or during business reviews. Deal reviews ensure the health of the deal on a regular and predictable basis. They also add rigor to sales forecasting. Here is a sample, from one of my client’s Sales Leadership Playbooks of some really great questions that a sales manager might ask during the qualify stage of the sales process.
Qualify Stage Sales Leader Questions:
What stage is your prospect in? How do you know?
Where is your prospect in their buying process? Can you articulate a high level overview of their buying process?
Is the customer a good fit for us? Why?
What customer problems are you solving?
Do you have evidence of the customer’s pain points and their willingness to solve?
Can you outline the current and desired state? Gaps?
What options does the customer have to solve their problems?
Have you sent a communication to the customer documenting your findings to date?
What is their timeline? Why now?
Did you gather enough information to develop initial Win Themes™?
Did you uncover any yellow or red flags so far?
Did the customer commit to the next step?
For large opportunities, have you engage the account team and started or refreshed the Strategy Brief?
Sales management, by asking really great deal questions, can help their sellers ‘Ringing the bell’ more frequently with TOP Line Account™ wins.
The TOP Line Account™ Sales Success Model
Common close ratio: 25%
Add pre-call planning: +20%
Add account strategy work: +20%
Add Win Themes™: +10%
Add competitive blocking: +10%
NEW CLOSE RATIO: 85%
The Perfect Book to Engage Executive Sponsors:
Invest in your executive selling efforts by giving your sellers the book that is guaranteed to enhance their sales performance. The TOP Seller Advantage: Powerful Strategies to Build Long-Term Executive Relationships includes proven strategies to ensure sellers develop long lasting executive access.
The C-suite executive perspectives at the end of each chapter reveal exactly how senior leaders view sales encounters and what would cause them to keep the door open for follow up meetings.
Pipeliner CRM empowers sales managers to ask the right questions. Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.
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