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2019 Spring QBS Boot Camp: May 9-10, 2019

Posted on January 29, 2019 Written by admin Leave a Comment

“There has never been a better time for sellers to do everything possible to make themselves invaluable to their customers, colleagues, and their company.”         -T. Freese

As 2019 continues to fly by, we are excited to announce the upcoming 2019 Spring QBS Boot Camp! If you would like to renew your focus on increasing your own sales effectiveness, or give your entire sales team an unfair advantage over the competition, join us on May 9-10, 2019.

The program will be facilitated by Certified QBS Trainer Alan Rohrer.

The learning environment will be highly interactive, with participants from a variety of industries including technology, financial services, healthcare, consulting, insurance, real estate, manufacturing, advertising, hospitality, and retail, and feedback from previous QBS Summit events has been “off the charts.”

With limited seating, reserve your seats early since we are expecting a full house. You might also want to bring extra pencils and a stack of writing pads for note taking.

 

“Tom! I wanted to thank you for an amazing training two weeks ago-my head is still spinning from all of the great info. I met with our Regional Manager yesterday and he wants you to train the rest of our team. You will be hearing from us very soon…”    -Liz B., Michigan…your newest QBS groupie!

Click for Early Enrollment Discount &  BOOT CAMP DETAILS.

Filed Under: announcements

SellingPower: Sales Makeovers

Posted on January 2, 2019 Written by admin Leave a Comment

Heather Baldwin, Editor of Selling Power Magazine, heard about the success our clients were having with Question Based Selling. So, she called me and asked, “Do you have any real life examples?”

That was easy enough. Since I had already trained several sales teams within IBM, I called Jim Hardee, Vice President Teleweb Sales, and asked if anyone wanted to participate in a laboratory experiment to ‘field test’ the QBS Methodology. We got tons of volunteers and the article about what happened with one person in particular.

“The results have been remarkable. Freese’s guidance has given him more confidence, made him more relaxed, and he sounds more natural. Now, Scott gets to the heart of the customer’s issues every time.” –Jim Hardee, IBM, Vice President Sales

In the article, Scott Fletcher attests that his conversations with customers have definitely become more meaningful. “Without a doubt,” he says, “This process makes customers ‘want to’ engage with you instead of pushing you away. Once you can get customers to open up, it makes the sales process a whole lot easier and the QBS approach does just that.”

[Read Entire PDF Article]

Filed Under: homepromo Tagged With: selling power magazine

Tom Freese’s Latest Book is a Game Changer!

Posted on December 12, 2018 Written by admin Leave a Comment

WARNING: Salespeople and sales managers will love this book, but
old school sales trainers are going to hate me for having written it.

Have you noticed that the overall business environment has changed dramatically over the years, yet the world of sales training has remained surprisingly stagnant? That’s about to change in a BIG way with the release of Tom Freese’s latest and most comprehensive addition to the QBS books series.


$14.00
(Click to Save 50%)
(Paperback)
$19.95

SalesForce 2020 is the only book of its kind. It’s a book about the future. While hindsight may be 20/20, it has become increasingly clear that many of the older school selling tactics that have been accepted and touted for decades no longer make sense as we rapidly approach the year 2020.

This raises two important questions that sellers in every industry must consider:

1.) “Do you want to continue struggle with what “used to work” in days gone by, or would you rather focus on what’s going to give you the greatest selling advantages moving forward?”

2.) Might it be time for an overhaul, or to at least upgrade your current approach?”

There’s a reason why top performing salespeople excel, while those who are struggling continue to struggle…even though they are all following the same basic sales process. It’s because just identifying the steps of the sales process is no longer a differentiator. All of your competitors have a sales process in place too, and theirs is probably very similar (if not identical) to yours.

Today, salespeople and managers are hungry for specific sales strategies and selling techniques that will give them an ‘unfair’ advantage in their respective markets, rather than reverting back to the outdated logic that has plagued traditional sales approaches for the last 30+ years.

SalesForce 2020 is a must read for anyone engaged in today’s rapidly changing sales environment. The book flows like you’re having a one-on-one conversation with Tom. Definitely a break-through in how to execute more effectively moving forward!

                                                           —Richard Brock, CEO
SalesTalk Technologies

Is this book an indictment of old school sales methods? In a word—Yes. It’s also a road map to show sellers how to gain a proven and differentiable advantage moving forward. Enjoy!

Come Join the Next Generation of Sales Enablement.

Filed Under: announcements, books, homepromo

Effective Sales Coaching Requires More Than Just Tracking Deals

Posted on March 11, 2018 Written by admin Leave a Comment

Throughout my pilgrimage in developing and training the QBS Methodology, I have always totally supported the notion of qualifying prospect opportunities, in order to know how to best allocate your available sales resources and proactively manage the sales forecast. But, just asking a bunch of qualifying questions to track deals on the forecast hardly qualifies as effective sales coaching.

It turns out that the tracking questions sales managers tend to ask over the years hasn’t changed much, as it’s no surprise that the goal is to try and discern where opportunities stand, in addition to understanding what needs to happen to further the sales cycle, and ultimately consummate a business transaction.

Typical sales tracking questions include:

  • Who is the primary decision maker?
  • What’s their timeframe for making a decision?
  • Who else needs to be involved in the discussion?
  • What are the prospect’s primary business drivers?
  • How much is the projected deal worth?
  • What are the potential next steps in their evaluation?
  • Which competitors pose the greatest threat?
  • Is there any way to close the business sooner?

The answers to these questions are valuable in terms of strategically targeting the efforts of the sales team. However, this line of questioning does little to help sellers know how to execute more effectively. You will also notice that while these questions help to track the status of prospect opportunities, just asking a bunch of “status” questions provides little value to the customer.

Understanding the status of a forecasted deal is not coaching. Using a sports analogy, when a manager’s only focus is asking a series of questions to track the status of various deals, that’s the equivalent of a football coach showing up in the locker room after a game, and asking questions to find out what happened during the actual contest.

True coaching, whether we’re using a sports analogy or actually talking about selling, is a proactive exercise to make sure individual players (or your entire team) are prepared to execute as effectively as possible. Thus, here are some coaching questions we use in Question Based Selling to cause salespeople (and managers alike) to think more deeply about specific objectives for upcoming calls, and how exactly they plan to accomplish those goals.

Here’s what proactive coaching questions sound like:

  • How many reasons do you want customers to have to buy from you?
  • What’s your strategy for gaining credibility early in the call?
  • What’s your strategy for causing prospects to “want to” share information with a salesperson they don’t yet know or trust?
  • What are you doing to leverage curiosity in the sales process?
  • What makes you purposeful and relevant in the eyes of a customer?
  • Will you be perceived as customer-focused or self-serving?
  • How will you differentiate yourself from all the competitive reps who are out there calling your same list of target accounts?

Ultimately, the most productive form of coaching is self-coaching—having the awareness (in advance) to know how to handle various sales situations, knowing that your sales manager isn’t always going to be available to tell you what to say.

What do I mean by self-coaching? Here is yet another list of proactive sales questions that sellers should consistently be asking themselves.

  • What advantages do I have over competitive options, including the decision to do nothing or maintain the status quo?
  • If I repeatedly get a prospect’s voice-mail, what message can I leave that will cause them to become curious enough to “want to” return my call?
  • What business issues or decision factors am I prepared to raise (that otherwise may not come up) in my next customer conversation?
  • How can I create mini-invitations that will lower the prospect’s natural defenses and help propel opportunities forward?
  • Which Diagnostic Questions™ am I going to use to kick-off my next needs development conversations?
  • How can I position our solutions as the most cost-effective alternative that accomplishes the customer’s objectives?
  • How can I close for a commitment or suggest possible next steps without sounding pushy or self-serving?
  • How can I help internal champions secure the necessary approvals from their counterparts or manager, especially if I’m not in the meeting?
  • What could I do to be more effective than on my last customer call?

Notice that these self-coaching questions are all scripted in the first person? With all there is to consider about coaching sales teams or empowering yourself on how to be more effective, my philosophy on skills development is actually pretty straightforward. This is not the time to sit back and wait for someone else to make you successful. There is plenty of guidance available to sellers, in the form of books, audio programs, and live sales training courses. But pick wisely, as I’ve made a career out of showing salespeople and sales organizations how to separate themselves from older-school paradigms that have been touted for decades, but no longer apply in the real world.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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Tom Freese vs. Other Motivational Speakers

Best Selling Author/Trainer

Strategic Questions

The Most Powerful Tool in Sales

Besides gathering information, strategic questions are a salesperson's best tool for:
• Piquing Customer Interest
• Establishing Credibility
• Understanding Requirements
• Creating a Sense of Urgency
• Qualifying Opportunities
• Competitive Differentiation
• Negotiation / Positioning
• Escalating to Decision Makers
• Securing Commitments / Closing Deals
• Maintaining Margins
• Getting Leads / Referrals
. . .which is very different than just probing for needs.

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