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6: Beware: too many of these questions will hurt you, not help you · Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth

• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know you should be asking good questions, but if you're asking too many of one type of question, you could be hurting yourself.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: So says Neil Rackham in Spin Selling.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Bite-Size Sales Podcast, where we believe that sales is the most important team in a B2B company, that complacency is the enemy, and taking bite-sized steps each day to get better at your craft is the best way to improve results.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Andrew Monahan, and I'm using my 26 years of experience in B2B sales to bring you small, actionable ideas every day to help you get better.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I heard someone say recently that different types of selling were from different decades.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they said specifically that spin selling is kind of defined or confined to the 80s.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's no doubt that's when the book came out.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: The research was done back in the 80s, but I would argue it's still as relevant today as it was then.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see in some of the supposed new ways of selling or new ideas of selling that are out there just now, you can see some of the DNA from those back from Spin and what the what Neil Rackham was advocating back in the 80s.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you read the book or listen to parts of it, you'll see exactly what I mean.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's in there and it's more it's just as relevant today as it was then.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one thing that spin calls out that there are different types of questions and each have their role, but good sellers know how to use these questions and how much of each type of question to use.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing that's also true now, as it was then, is that more junior or less experienced reps seem to be more comfortable asking situational questions than any other type of question.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, they probably overplay it.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And situational questions are the how many do you have of these, and when did you buy it, and which vendors do you use?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how long have you had it for?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: When's the renewal due?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: How is it set up?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: All these kind of factual situational questions is what they're referring to in the book.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So to read from the book, situation questions are not positively related to success.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: In calls that succeed, sellers ask fewer situation questions than in calls that fail.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Inexperienced salespeople ask more situation questions than do those who have longer sales experience.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Situation questions are an essential part of questioning, but they must be used carefully.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Successful salespeople ask fewer situation questions.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Each one they ask has a focus or purpose.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And buyers quickly become bored or impatient if asked too many situation questions.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Still from the book, these findings are easy to explain.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself who benefits from situation questions, the buyer or the seller.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Clearly, it's a seller.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: A busy customer doesn't generally derive great delight and happiness from giving a salesperson detail after detail of his or her situation.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I've come to believe that there's a special place in hell reserved for wicked salespeople where they sit for all eternity being forced to answer their own situation questions.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we find that inexperienced salespeople ask more situation questions than those with greater selling experience?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Presumably it's because situation questions are easy to ask and they feel safe.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: When I didn't know much about selling, my main concern in the call was to be sure I didn't offend the buyer.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And because situation questions seemed so inoffensive, I asked too many of them.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, in those days I hadn't hit on the great sales truth that you can't bore your customers into buying.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the fault with situation questions is that from the buyer's point of view, they are likely to be boring.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Does this mean that you shouldn't ask situation questions?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: No, you can't sell without them.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: What the research shows is that successful people don't ask unnecessary situation questions.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: They do their homework before the call and through good pre-call planning eliminate many of the fact-finding questions that can bore the buyer.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: As sellers become more experienced, their behavior changes.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: They no longer spend most of the call collecting background situation information.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, their questions move on to a different area.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's read directly from the book Spin Selling by Neil Rackham, which came out in the late 80s.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: As I say, it's still as relevant today as it was then.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I know from my experience, you know, looking back on in different uh times that I was selling, that I probably relied too much on situational questions.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: I probably had some head trash around moving beyond that in the spin world and to implication, problem, and need payoff type questions or discussions.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um the different areas of these questions seem to have more relevance for senior execs the more you get into them.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: So to the author's point, asking a whole bunch of situation questions is boring and not that useful or not that interesting for the exec.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about a senior exec, you know, they're brought in to focus on big, important things.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's what their job's all about.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Their job is not to focus on how many do we have and how long have we had them and um who do we have it from and things like that.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Their job is to think about solving big problems, transforming the business.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, big problems result in big projects, and that's what we also want to focus as well, is what they focus on.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're as a senior exec, if you think about it, if your role is to focus on big things, you will get bored and impatient if someone comes in wanting to ask you questions about the mundane, the boring, the things that aren't that important to you.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, my challenge thinking about this with everyone is don't be mundane.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Don't bore people.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Quick, get as quickly as you can into parts of the conversation which are more relevant for those senior people you want to work with.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Think about the big impacts and the big transformations they will want to talk about and explain to you rather than the very mundane situational questions.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the action is look back over your last two or three meetings, your last two or three calls, and be a little bit harsher with yourself and say, was I focusing too much on situational questions that I may have been able to answer or get the information for before the call?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And should I have been spending more time on big problems, big transformations, impacts, implications, needs payoff type questions, and have that discussion with these senior people.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to get the book mentioned in this episode for free, simply go to bite sizesales.com forward slash free book.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you sign up on that page for unstoppable.do, we'll send you your book on us.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Unstoppable gives you habit-forming action notes on great sales books such as Spin Selling, Never Split the Difference, New Sales Simplify, The Challenger Sale, and many more.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: In there you get the best ideas from these books, all organized in a straightforward and easy to implement way, and designed for you to take action and transform your results.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: All the equivalent of three cups of coffee per month.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Start now and get your free book by going to bite sizesales.com forward slash free book.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Co-workers, teammates, your boss, your head of sales, even that guy you worked with two companies ago who could probably do some help.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, just overshare it.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the few times at school to do that.
• 9:26
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• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Please click it and share it wide and fun.