Background
Companies are no longer interested in motivational hype, clever sound bites, or generic buzzwords. Instead, industry leaders are hungry for proven strategies that will give their sales team(s) an ‘unfair’ advantage in today’s increasingly competitive business environment.
Closing more deals (at higher margins) is what really gets people excited!
Thomas A. Freese first introduced Question Based Selling™ in 1997. QBS Research, Inc. has since delivered QBS Methodology Training to thousands of salespeople in a variety of industries worldwide.
With an extensive background in sales training, market positioning, and executive coaching, our goal has always been to deliver the most interactive, customized, and impactful sales training programs your company has ever experienced.
”Culturalizing” the QBS Methodology
Why do companies all over the world spend millions of dollars telling salespeople what to say, but they spend almost nothing teaching them “how” to ask? Any experienced salesperson knows that just rattling off a litany of sales questions is no longer enough to cause potential buyers to “want to” engage in a productive business conversation about their needs or your potential solutions.
What’s the definition of insanity? Some would say it’s continuing to use the same approach and expecting different results.
There’s a reason why some salespeople are ‘killing it,’ while others struggle just to keep their heads above water. It’s because many of the sales tactics that have been taught over the last 30+ years no longer make sense in the current business climate. Therein lies the opportunity to boost your sales team’s performance and results.
The secret to increasing productivity is pretty straightforward. It starts with introducing innovative ideas that can give your sales team a differentiable advantage. It’s equally important to make those ideas stick, by empowering sales leaders with the ability to support, coach, and revisit key QBS concepts long after the training class has adjourned.
Better results usually require a certain level of behavior modification as well, which likely includes a few adjustments to the status quo. But since the ‘grooves of habit’ that have been engrained over time tend to be very deep, people in general (i.e. sales teams) are often resistant to change.
Enforcement is one option to try and expedite change. But pressure is an extremely poor catalyst for enhancing communication skills, as you cannot ‘force’ a salesperson to seem credible in the eyes of their customers, convey greater value, or more effectively differentiate themselves from the competition.
True behavioral change ultimately requires buy-in from the troops. Good ideas only “stick” if the logic behind them is sound, current, and makes sense to those who interact with customers directly, or participate in other ways throughout the sales process. That’s why the implementation of Question Based Selling for every client is buoyed by logic…and common sense.
The formula for implementing the QBS Methodology is simple. If something makes sense, then do it. But when traditional thinking no longer delivers desirable sales results, then a few strategic adjustments to your current approach can have an immediate and lasting positive impact on the organization.
Note: Delivery options include QBS Certification, Train the Trainers, and Licensing QBS®.
Time to Upgrade Your Selling Skills?
One of the best ways to assess the opportunity (or need) to upgrade your team’s selling skills is to ask a few foundational strategy questions, like:
- How often do you use Global Questions?
- What’s your strategy for causing new prospects to “want to” share information with a salesperson they don’t yet know or trust?
- Besides ‘pain points’, how many other decision drivers can you name that motivate potential buyers to enter into a productive sales dialogue, and then move forward with a purchase?
- What needs, goals, or issues are you prepared to raise in your next sales conversation that the customer might not think to bring up on their own?
- What’s your typical response rate when leaving voice-mails or sending email solicitations?
- What are you doing to leverage curiosity to secure mindshare with key decision-makers and other stakeholders within important prospect accounts?
- What’s the cost of not buying your product or service?
- How is your approach any different from the other 50 salespeople who are calling the same list of target accounts?
Even those who have enjoyed sales success in the past are having to recalibrate and adapt their approach, because the ‘field’ on which the ‘game’ of selling is now being played has changed dramatically. —Thomas A. Freese
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QBS® is a registered trademark of QBS Research, Inc.