How Curiosity Can Boost Your Sales

BY Kathy Crosett
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If you’re a naturally curious person, you may have a competitive edge. Chanin Ballance discusses the importance of curiosity in her post for Selling Power. To learn exactly how this trait can help you, read on.

Being curious will open new avenues during the discovery process with a prospect. If you limit your questions in a discovery call to what you think you know, you’ll miss opportunities to uncover larger problems. The prospect may be looking for ways to increase sales of their flagship product, and you’re prepared to help. But, what if they are also struggling with the launch of a new product? You may have relevant experience that could apply to the roll out of the product. If you never ask, you’ll never know. And, you may have missed out on the chance for a lucrative, longer term relationship with that prospect.

Allowing your curious side to take over during a sales conversation also encourages your brain to work harder. With each question you ask, you receive and then consider the answer. You’re making connections between what the prospects say they need and how your solutions can be used to satisfy those needs.

The brain exercises don’t stop there. Curiosity also drives high-​performing reps to question what they can change to improve outcomes. Could your product demo be easily customized for the next prospect, based on what you’ve learned about them? Could the article you just read be interesting to the prospect you met this week?

Incurious people can change their ways to make this trait work for them. If you think you’ve been rushing through discovery calls and presentations just to make your numbers, slow down. Before each call, make a list of questions that are unrelated to the prospect’s current product. And before each presentation, ask yourself how you can personalize the slides to make a bigger impact.

When you fail to ask your prospect questions, you may come across as uninterested. That's not the kind of impression you want to make. Start creating lists of questions before each prospect meeting to work your curiosity muscles and to increase your sales.


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