I just finished a Discovery coaching conversation with a number of Account Executives and I wanted to share two insights for those that are watching this video. One is pretty obvious or should be obvious and the other is lesser known. What should be obvious to Account Executives is that prospects crave reasons (you should hang that up next to next to your laptop if you need to). Prospects crave reasons. They need, They don't even have a desire, they need, it's a fundamental need for them to understand why you're asking certain questions. I'm sure many of you have been in a situation in your sales experience, (hopefully it happens early and not later) where the prospect doesn't understand why you're asking a question and they either don't answer it, or you feel some frustration on their end, or they just try to take over the conversation. So always provide reasons for your prospects as to why you're saying things or asking especially difficult questions. The other lesser known insight is they actually, counterintuitively, don't need to understand the reason why you're saying things or asking questions if your dialogue with them is very conversational and it's coming from a place of curiosity. So actually, there's an inverse relationship between how conversational your dialogue is and their need for reasons. The more conversational it is, the less they need reasons. The less your conversational it is ... the more they need reasons for your questions. The main way or the main ingredient as to HOW to go about doing that is to come across as non threatening. And the way you come across as non threatening on a call is always telling the prospect, directly and indirectly, "You know, we're not fit for everybody, you're welcome to tell me no after this conversation" That selfishly actually helps you become more comfortable having those conversations. And then when you ask a prospect "Why, out of curiosity... why do you feel that that's a problem? just so I can understand" that question will come across much better. And because they see you're coming across as really curious, because you're non threatening, because you're consistently telling them it's okay that we don't work together, then that need to understand the reason for your questions and statements dramatically goes down, and it makes your job a lot easier. So I thought that was worth sharing. If you have any comments, please, mark them down below. Thank you.
