Using Next Level Power Questions At Events To Boost New Business

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A short time ago, I wrote about how my kids have Jedi-like qualities when it comes to asking for what they want. While I don’t fold as easily as a storm-trooper granting Luke and Obi Wan passage, the process often leaves me just as befuddled. Perhaps it’s because of the relentless, tireless line of questioning, but when they’re peppering me with ongoing, open-ended questions, I can feel my resistance draining. It’s not a negative thing, mind you, but quite the opposite: I feel proud of their ability to keep their eyes on the prize and not back down.

In the previous post, I wrote about the value of power (open-ended) questions in getting the information we need to help move the sales process forward. Power questions help us uncover needs, potential objections and perhaps most importantly, entice the prospect’s involvement in the dialogue. As any marketing or business development professional will attest, your odds of winning new business increase exponentially when the other party is actively participating. If he/she just sits there, arms folded and uttering an occasional grunt to let you know they’re still alive (but not for long), then you’re doomed. We can do better.

Knowing what to ask and when to ask it can be challenging for anyone in marketing and business development. Timing is everything. Since situations vary, it makes sense to have a plan for the different environments in which we meet and engage with prospects (and clients for that matter). Being prepared is a key success factor. Can you remember anyone going into a test, meeting or anything without preparing, and doing well? Yeah, me neither.

Conferences, seminars and networking events are prime opportunities to meet prospects and clients (along with bringing home suitcases full of swag). If your company taps you for this assignment, prepare. Aside from watching a YouTube tutorial on how to fold a suit for travel without destroying it, take the time to come up with what I call next-level questions to ask prospects during the event.

At some point, you’ll end up mingling with other attendees during a cocktail hour or dinner event. For purposes of this post, I’m using a financial services conference setting, though these questions are easily adaptable to other industries. People like to talk about themselves, so your job is to ask questions that encourage them to open up. After the typical greeting, you can create a meaningful interaction by asking questions following a logical progression. Four types of next-level power questions include:

Introductory Question

1. What is your role, and what are your primary responsibilities?

(Don’t settle for just learning someone’s name and title. This question gives them the opportunity to tell you about themselves.)

2. What’s been your experience with systems like Advent, Portia or DST?

(Insert whatever system or process is relevant to you and your company’s products/services. Again, get them talking.)

3. In what ways have client or regulatory initiatives impacted your firm?

 

General Follow-Up Questions

1. How does your firm choose a software provider?

2. What key projects is your firm considering?

3. What do you look for when implementing a software solution?

 

Functional Follow-Up Questions

1. To what extent is cost-basis accounting a key service offering?

2. What have you found to be the most challenging aspect of implementing performance systems?

3. In what ways are digital strategies impacting projects?

 

Transition Questions

1. What makes your company choose one product over another?

2. Why are those the deciding factors?

3. Who is involved in the decision-making process?

 

By no means is this meant to be a complete list. Each situation we encounter is different, and as marketing and business development professionals, we have to adjust accordingly. Being able to adjust on the fly requires preparation. In the above conference example, do your homework BEFORE you to the event. Knowing who will be there and obtaining relevant key information about these people is a powerful ally in achieving success with business development. How so? Read on.

A few years ago, while in a Marketing & Business Development capacity for a company, I attended a conference in Las Vegas. Before the event, I used a list of expected attendees to group clients and prospects by the type of service and revenue tier. With this list in hand, I gathered information on each person from our CRM system to build a prospect profile. To complete the competitive profile, I researched each person outside of our CRM system to find interesting tidbits that I hoped would enrich conversations.

For one attendee in particular, I learned that she was actively involved in many conversation efforts, including one whose goal was saving tigers. Knowing this, I sought her out during the event, since my company was also heavily involved in conservation initiatives. I was hopeful that this would encourage a productive dialogue since we had shared interests. We crossed paths, and I talked to her about my company’s conservation programs and asked about hers. I had several “Next Level” power questions ready, and these, combined with my research, moved the conversation forward. This opened a larger dialogue about my company that ultimately led to new business and revenue.

Time to level up!

Staying Cool: 5 Reasons to Be Cooler Than The Other Side of the Pillow

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The Most Interesting Man in the World implores us to “Stay thirsty, my friends.” There are many hilarious memes with variations of the Most Interesting Man in the World’s “I don’t always…” theme. One of my favorites is “I don’t always drop ice cubes on the floor, but when I do, I shamelessly kick them underneath the fridge.” Comedy gold aside, there is a real life lesson, adapted from the famous Dos Equis pitchman’s directive: staying cool in the face of adversity.

If you watched the NFL playoffs this past weekend, the Pittsburgh-Cincinnati game in particular, you saw the Bengals author an epic implosion. While we can argue the merits of the plays, calls or non-calls during the last two minutes of the game, what isn’t debatable is that the Bengals came unglued at the worst possible moment. Benefitting from two personal fouls against the undisciplined Bengals, the Steelers gained 30 yards of field position without a second coming off the clock. After the Steelers kicked the game winning field goal, the Bengals blamed everyone but themselves for the stunning loss. Needless to say, Cincinnati did not stay cool in the face of adversity.

When you’re part of a team, you can’t be an undisciplined hothead. It will end up costing you and your team at some point. If you’re the team leader (coach, manager, supervisor or whatever), you have to keep your team in control and on task. In the game, Bengals coach Marvin Lewis failed to control his team, and the result speaks for itself. I coach my youth baseball, and even at the 10 year-old age (or especially at this age, depending who you ask), keeping my team focused and not unraveling when things inevitably go awry is critical to its success and the kids’ developing life skills.

With this in mind, five benefits of staying cool, whether you’re part of a team or its leader:

1. Keeps you focused on the big picture

It’s not often in sports, business or life that everything goes as planned. Obstacles will arise and challenges will emerge that threaten the objective. When you stay cool, you’re able to manage these distractions in a way that doesn’t compromise the primary goal.

2. Shows strength and character

This is especially true for team leaders, who lead by example, in one way or another. How you deal with adversity will filter down to the troops, and they will respond accordingly. As part of a team, by staying cool, you become a much more valuable resource to the team’s leader and an example for others.

3. Demonstrates leadership

For better or worse, team members will follow their leaders and mimic the behavior they see. By keeping calm when responding to adversity, you show the team the stability many will need when in managing the situation. Overreacting tends to produce difficult-to-reverse decisions, or at the least, decisions that result in people questioning your ability to lead.

4. Promotes accountability

Staying cool in the face of adversity allows you to acknowledge the situation and respond in a positive fashion, without attempting to cast blame. People instinctively want to help others, so when you’re able to keep calm, you’ll be able to accept responsibility which will endear you to others, and elicit their help.

5. Advancement opportunity

In sports, business and life, people that stay cool are respected, valued and rewarded. We’ve often heard one or more variations of “…is a pressure player, and plays his/her best when the spotlight is the brightest.” The same applies in business and life. When you can stay cool, you show the type of leadership that people appreciate and will follow.

By no means am I saying that it’s easy to stay cool and focused. I can appreciate the frustration of seeing things crumble before your eyes, when you’ve worked hard to get to that point. We’re human beings, and for whom emotions and rationale thought separate us from the rest of the creatures on the planet. I’m also not advocating that we transform into cold, emotionless robots. However, by staying cool, we help not only ourselves, we help others too.

As such, and in a nod to the Most Interesting Man in the World: Stay Cool, My Friends.

 

Improvise, Overcome & Adapt: 3 Keys to Successful Business Development

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Like many people I know, I’ve slipped a movie quote or two into more conversations than I care to count. While some may view it as an unnecessary distraction, I see it as an art form. Knowing when to crow bar a movie quote into a conversation takes skill!

I’ll give you an example. I coach my son’s baseball team, and not too long ago, I threw batting practice. At one point, when throwing to my son, he hit a scorching line drive right back at me. Instead of ducking behind the screen, I turned to my left and tightened my right arm to absorb the hit. It hit me flush in the middle of my upper arm, which immediately began to throb.

When I got home, my son was overly excited to tell my wife that he had drilled Dad in the arm. After yelling at me for being macho instead of safe, she offered ice and asked where it hurt. The movie quote guy in me responded with a line from the classic Chris Farley flick, Tommy Boy. Pointing to various spots on my arm, I said, “Well, it hurts here. Not here, or here so much. But right here.”

Another movie I’ve found quote-worthy many times is Heartbreak Ridge, the 1986 Clint Eastwood vehicle. Early in the movie, Clint’s character (Sergeant Highway) takes command of an undisciplined group of Marines, and has them assemble outside the barracks first thing in the morning. Sgt. Highway is wearing an olive shirt, while the platoon is wearing all different colors. The dialogue that unfolds:

Highway: “Strip off those T-shirts.”

Marines mumbling, as one says: “Say what?”

Highway: “You’ll all wear the same T-shirts.”

The following morning, the Marines gather outside the barracks, all wearing the same olive color shirt. Highway, however is wearing a red shirt. This scene plays out as follows:

Highway: “Strip off those T-shirts.”

Marine: “Gunny. We’re all the same.”

Highway: “Same as me?”

Different Marine: “How the hell are we supposed to know what kind of T-shirt…”

Highway: “You improvise. You overcome. You adapt. Now get off those god-@#$% T-shirts now.”

Later in the movie, the Marines do exactly as Sgt. Highway directed: they improvised, overcame and adapted by figuring out which T-shirt Highway would be wearing the following morning.  Sgt. Highway’s mantra has real-world application, no matter the industry, job or task.

When it comes to business development, being able to improvise, overcome and adapt are three keys to success. Each has its own meaning, but all point toward the same goal: winning new business. While it’s a job responsibility and task given to a specific team, business development touches every group within a company, as Chris Farber deftly notes in a recent post. It stands to reason then, that the three keys mentioned above also apply across corporate groups.

Improvise: to make, invent or create something using whatever is available.

It’s not often that the business development process unfolds as planned. Things often go awry, from rescheduled meetings to unexpected people in attendance that threaten to derail the process. A business development pro can improvise in a rapidly changing environment, but do so while maintaining credibility. Perhaps you’re presented with new information during a meeting that will quite possibly change the direction of the conversation. By asking power questions, you’ll elicit the information you need to improvise.

Note: improvise also refers to speaking or performing without preparation. My suggestion: don’t do this. Always prepare. Leave improv to the comedians.

Overcome: to successfully deal with or gain control over something.

Obstacles. Objections. Business developers encounter these roadblocks at every turn in the process. What separates the pros is their ability to move past these challenges and keep the cycle moving. Overcoming objections (a topic for a future post) might require the business development pro to improvise. Knowing your product and its benefits (not features), along with your prospect’s pain points is one way (for starters) to successfully overcome a client or prospect’s objections.

Overcome also has another meaning: to defeat someone. If you approach business development in this way, the only defeat that can be ensured is yours. Don’t; just don’t. Business development is a collaborative process, not a one-person war.

Adapt: to change something so that it functions better or is better suited for a different purpose.

Darwin’s theory says that survival goes to the fittest. In business, this is only partially true. Survival and success goes to those that can also adapt to new regulations, changing industry demands and rapidly evolving technology.

For a business development pro, having the ability to adapt is critical to success. It’s not the same as improvising in the face of new information received during a prospect meeting; rather it refers to changing the overall approach as directed by client and prospect feedback. In the financial services industry, frequent rule and regulatory changes can have a dramatic effect on firms. Getting ahead of these developments by adapting the business development process to focus on new requirements demonstrates credibility and adaptability.

So as Sgt. Highway commands: “Improvise. Overcome. Adapt,” or he’ll tell you to strip off that business development T-shirt.

#improvise #overcome #adapt #winning

How To Use Power Questions To Boost New Business

Image by Kathy Cassidy on flickr

 

 

 

 

 

Why?

As a parent, I’ve heard this simple, yet powerful, question countless times from my three kids. It’s effective as it forces me to answer, lest they continue to barrage me with follow-up “Why” questions. I have to give more than a “Yes” or “No” response. I also have to provide information explaining my answer. Whether it’s the answer they want or not, my kids will continue to probe. They want to uncover my real objection or position, so they can try to overcome it or change my views. It’s no wonder that the axiom, “Kids make the best salespeople” is not just a catchy phrase, it’s also completely true. My kids, like so many others, are master intelligence operatives.

The same principles hold true in business. Questions are used to obtain critical information to learn what to do, how to do it, when to do it and most importantly, why to do it. Whether it’s acquiring another company, considering enterprise software updates or crafting the company’s long-term strategy, questions play a key role in a company’s ongoing viability.

The right questions get us the information we need to make smart decisions and plot the course forward. This is especially true for marketing and business development professionals. Uncovering prospect needs is a key success factor in the sales process. When you don’t ask the types of questions that elicit the right answers (information), it’s difficult to create value for the prospect. If you can’t demonstrate value, the risk of not getting the sale increases. As I summarized in a previous post discussing the concept of selling Benefits vs. Features, Value = New Business.

Finding value when conversing with prospects is about asking the right types of questions. Closed-end questions that allow prospect to answer with “Yes” or “No” won’t cut it. Open-end questions (also known as “power questions”) are thought provoking and result in key details that facilitate the sales process. One important, albeit basic, thing to remember: when you’ve asked a power question, stop talking, listen and take notes. This does two things: (1) shows the other party that you’re actually interested in what they have to say and (2) helps you remember important details later.

To get the information you need to build value and new business, ask power questions that:

1. Make them think before responding. Like the above example with my kids, when you ask questions that don’t encourage only “Yes” or “No” answers, you’ll obtain the information you need.

2. Qualify needs. If you can’t uncover a prospect’s needs, it’ll be hard to create value that entices them to move forward.

3. Compels your client or prospect to consider new information. By making them evaluate other details (downstream impacts, other possible stakeholders, etc.), you’re demonstrating value…the kind that comes from experience.

4. Focus on personal and company goals. One of the best ways to add value is by helping the decision maker, and their company, meet goals.

5. Distance your company from the competition, not tie them together through comparison. Power questions allow you to cleverly highlight how your products and services add value by identifying their unique value, while indirectly illustrating the competition’s shortcomings.

6. Touch on improved operating efficiency, productivity, revenue and cost savings. Asking power questions with this focus will allow you to simultaneously uncover needs and the product or service benefits (not features) they’ll find most valuable.

While there are countless examples of power questions that should be asked, for the sake of brevity, I’ll focus on a few. An important note: ask questions from a positive perspective.

For example, don’t ask something like, “What don’t you like about …”.

Reframe it as, “What would you change about…?”.

The first question will only elicit a negative reply. However, the second example prompts the other person to think about how they’d change things for the better. It’s a slight difference in wording, but a powerful difference in the tone and result.

Below are examples of a few power questions you can ask (and a few non-power questions that you shouldn’t ask). I have the financial services industry in mind for my sample questions, though as you can see, they are easily adaptable to other industries.

Ask This: To what extent is outsourcing a part of your company’s business model?

Not This: Does your firm do any outsourcing?

 

Ask This: What’s been your experience with accounting platforms like (insert service provider names)?

Not This: What accounting platforms do you currently use?

 

Ask This: How does your firm determine which trading or reporting systems to use?

Not This: Do you use (insert service provider)?

 

Ask This: What is one thing you’d change about previous system implementations?

Not This: Are you satisfied with previous system implementations?

 

Ask This: What have you found to be the most challenging aspect of a new product or software implementation?

Not This: What usually goes wrong during an implementation?

 

Ask This: To what extent does a new client improve profitability?

Not This: Is a new client worth a lot to your company?

 

Ask This: In what ways have regulatory or client initiatives influenced project decision-making?

Not This: Do business needs change project decision-making?

 

Ask This: What makes your firm choose one product over another?

Not This: What would it take to get your business?

 

Ask This: How will the decision be made?

Not This: Are you the person that makes the decision?

In the movie, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, Indiana Jones is told by a centuries-old knight to choose the cup from which he will drink water from the fountain of youth. After a brief, but harried deliberation, Indy chooses a cup and gulps down the water. The Knight looks at him and says, “You have chosen…wisely.” The same applies to the questions you ask client and prospects.

Ask (wisely) and you shall receive.

Drive For Show Or Putt For Dough: Selling Benefits vs. Features

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A few days ago, I sat in the 1970’s-like office of my family’s auto mechanic, waiting for routine work to be completed. While I sat there, flipping through a random assortment of magazines, in walked a salesperson. His golf shirt and khakis stood out in the shop’s sea of dirty, oily denim. He had a small duffel bag from which he handed out several cheap, plastic cups adorned with his company’s logo.

I continued to skim through a magazine as Golf-shirt chatted up the shop’s office manager while he waited for the owner. He was affable and professional – a true salesperson. He wasn’t overbearing, but spoke nonstop, barely allowing the office manager a chance to speak. Golf-shirt’s focus changed the moment the shop owner appeared and directed him into an open-door office only a few feet from the lobby. This proximity allowed me to hear the meeting play out in its entirety.

Strong Off The Tee

After a few light-hearted, ice-breaking comments, Golf-shirt got down to the business at hand. What followed was an example of where the business development process often breaks down: explaining ad nauseam the features of a product instead of its benefits. Golf-shirt’s pitch involved an in-depth review of a collection of tools he was selling. This review covered the full gamut of features and technical specs, along with his description of how they were top-of-the line, world-class products. Clearly, this was an impressive array of power tools, and any mechanic would be lucky to get his hands on them.

From the type of material used in the construction of the tools, to the speed with which the tools operated, Golf-shirt’s pitch only described what the tools could do. It lacked the more important part: what the tools could do for the prospect. Not surprisingly, the marketing materials (which I glimpsed at the counter during checkout) he left behind also had a singular focus on features.

In doing so, Golf-shirt never addressed how the new power tools could help (benefit) the shop owner. It wasn’t hard to imagine the owner’s glossy-eyed, disinterested look. It struck me while I sat there overhearing this conversation: like he did with the office manager, Golf-shirt did all of the talking. With such a one-way exchange of information, how could he possibly understand the shop owner’s pain points and thereby position the benefits of his products? A kindly older man, the shop owner was courteous enough to allow Golf-shirt to finish his pitch, before ushering him out of the door and returning to work.

Play From The Fairway

Image by Chris Wellner on Flickr

Business development is challenging.

Why make it harder on yourself than it has to be? Golf-shirt, had he taken the time to listen and understand some of the shop owner’s issues, could have translated product features into benefits in a way that would resonate with the shop owner.

• Will the new power tools help the shop owner work on more vehicles, thereby improving his income?
• Or, will the new tools help the shop owner improve productivity, by doing more, faster?

While these are examples from Golf-shirt’s meeting, the same concept (focusing on benefits) applies to any company, in any industry. Software firms have extensive technical specifications describing the architecture supporting their products. While these are both necessary and useful in front of the right audience (IT, Development), this level of detail is overwhelming and less helpful to other key stakeholders.

Features describe the product or service, and may not mean much to a prospect. Benefits describe how the product or service can help the prospect. Successful business development professionals know that identifying, understanding and solving your prospect’s pain points is key to building trust and winning new business.

Putt for Dough

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Marketing materials play an important role in the business development process. One-page and two-page product flyers often list features, rather than the benefits that can be realized from using the product. A few examples of features listed in the marketing collateral Golf-shirt left behind, along with others I’ve seen firms (such as software companies) use:

1. Titanium chassis
2. 1500 ft.-lbs. of torque
3. Web-based or server architecture
4. Accepts external data feeds
5. Numerous import/export tools
6. Custom reporting platform

The above list of features, rewritten as benefits, to show value to prospects:

1. Strong, tough and durable; built to last
2. Power through difficult jobs with ease
3. Flexibility and scalability to meet needs of companies of all sizes
4. Eliminate data quality issues by seamlessly combining multiple data sources
5. Get the information you need, when you need it
6. Save time, money and resources by automating reporting tasks with one click

Being able to recognize and understand your client or prospect’s challenges, and use this knowledge to focus on benefits in all of your marketing communications (pitches, RFPs, collateral) helps business development efforts. It establishes credibility, builds trust and fosters partnership. Further, it leads to your prospect visualizing using the product or service and having a visceral reaction where they see themselves benefitting from it. Once you’ve done this, you’ve created significant value. As business development professionals know well, creating value for prospects is a surefire way to convert them into clients.

Benefits = value. Value = new business.