Companies rely on forecasted revenue for many reasons, including inventory management, support resources, to project earnings. And as long as there are sales teams, salespeople will be expected to forecast the probability of pending deals.

Ironically, the accuracy of corporate sales forecasts has declined in recent years, though this trend has been somewhat masked by favorable economic conditions. For example, check out the dialogue below, which will likely play out many times For example, check out the dialogue below, which will likely play out many times in upcoming account strategy calls:

Sales Mgr: “Is this a 30% opportunity…or 90%?”

Salesperson: “Well, I have a feeling it will close this month.”

When someone says, “I have a feeling,” or, “The customer gave me the impression that…”, that’s a pretty good indicator that there has been little (or no) direct conversation about the timing of the deal, or other factors that may influence the outcome of a forecasted opportunity. 

A vague interpretation of what customers “may be” thinking, or how a rep “feels,” is called guessing. The considerable amount of guesswork these days may be directly related to an ever-increasing reliance on electronics for back-and-forth communication, as opposed to speaking directly with customers.

The question about how best to communicate with potential buyers comes up all the time in QBS training events. To illustrate a point, I sometimes ask participants to indicate the length of a typical prospect email message by holding their fingers apart.

Most folks adjust their fingers between one and four inches apart, which represents four to five meaningful sentences—maybe six. That’s just email. Text messages are even shorter.

Conversely, if someone transcribed the typical customer conversation, it would likely fill multiple type-written pages. As a bonus, “live” conversations allow you to pick up on non-verbal cues like voice inflection, tone, and the customer’s level of eagerness (or reluctance) to move forward.

I sometimes get pushback from sellers wanting to try and convince me that customers nowadays prefer email and text. Nope! While I agree that email and texting are useful tools, they were never intended to replace the value that comes from engaging in “live” sales conversations. Mutually beneficial business relationships and building customer loyalty are not the product of hand-held electronic devices.

Put it this way, prospects and customers are going to be talking with someone. It might as well be you. Sellers who engage in more productive customer conversations will have a clearer picture of where they stand in the sales process, and what else needs to happen to close deals.

The net result of superior communication is a more accurate forecast as companies and salespeople strive to achieve their goals.

Have you ever been on a prospect call (or delivered a presentation) where everything seemed to be going well, until the very end, when the only sound that could be heard was total silence? Then, in an attempt to elicit some sort of feedback, you ask, “Does anyone have any questions?”, only to find yourself looking at a sea of blank faces, as if you’re staring at the world’s largest oil painting?

One of the harsh realities salespeople face in today’s increasingly competitive marketplace is the fact that customers who are not truly engaged are unlikely to buy from you.

Picture the newly hired salesperson, trying to rationalize his lack of production during the first month on the job, explains to his boss,“Sir, I can lead the ‘horses’ to water, but I can’t always make ’em drink.”

“Make ’em drink?” the sales manager sputters. “Making customers drink is not your job. Your job is to make them thirsty!”

The sales manager in this anecdote makes a great point. It’s not the salesperson’s role to try and force people to buy. Instead, the sales function starts with piquing the prospect’s interest, so customers will want to know more about the products and services being offered.

It has become far too easy to encourage sales teams to reach out to more prospects, ask more questions, probe for more needs, and let’s not forget to qualify the opportunity—yet none of these actions constitutes real engagement.

True engagement occurs when the customer begins to inquire about you, your company, and how your products and services might be able to provide value. Wouldn’t you rather engage potential buyers in an interactive back and forth discussion about their needs and the value of your offerings, than deliver a one-way monologue?

What if it were possible to sustain 30%, 40%, or even 50% response rates on your social media outreach efforts, or when sending emails or leaving voice-mail messages? Imagine the impact that would have on your Return on Invested Sales Efforts (R-O-I-S-E).

These results are absolutely attainable, but only for those who are willing to step outside the boundaries of traditional sales thinking.

Successfully engaging more prospects in more productive sales conversations starts with your ability to make them curious. Whether you’re calling customers directly, or reaching out via email, or leveraging social media, curiosity is the initial spark that causes potential buyers to “want to” engage, and curiosity is also the catalyst that fuels the rest of the sales process. It’s a simple formula, really. Prospects who are curious will want to engage further, while those who aren’t the least bit curious, won’t.

Throughout Question Based Selling, we want people to become more curious. We want customers to ask questions, and we want them to “want to” engage in a more productive dialogue about their needs and your ability to provide value. But, successfully leveraging curiosity requires a fundamental change in strategy. Rather than launching into an ‘elevator pitch’ filled with a bunch of buzzwords or industry catch-phrases, in the hopes of piquing the prospect’s interest, piquing the customer’s interest is actually the first step to engaging more prospects in order to create new business opportunities.

So, dare I ask, what are you doing to leverage curiosity throughout the sales process?

A proficiency gap seems to be widening among sales teams—where new business opportunities are increasingly more difficult to come by, and far too many sellers have become complacent (if not lazy) in their commitment to hone their craft.

Today’s selling environment is more difficult. That’s inarguable, especially given the volume of vendor solicitations prospective buyers have to fend off on a daily (if not hourly) basis.

“Customers don’t want to talk to vendors anymore,” is a recurring theme I often hear as I deliver QBS Methodology Training to sales teams all over the world, followed by the sentiment (from salespeople) that… “I would much rather communicate via email or text.”

I get it. Having raised two daughters in the electronics age, I’ve been on the receiving end of countless father-daughter text messages, some as long as my leg. My reply is always the same… ”Call me so we can discuss!” Seconds later, my cell phone rings and we work through whatever the latest drama, tragedy, or cause for celebration is—in a fraction of the time it would take to convey a series of cryptic texts back and forth.

Note that I’m not an old-school fuddy-duddy. In fact, quite the opposite. I believe that email, texting, and social media can all be valuable communication tools. But they DO NOT compensate for the real-time value of face-to-face (or voice-to-voice) interactions with customers.

Here’s a simple truth that will nevergo out of vogue. Every customer on your target list of accounts shares their needs, wants, goals, objectives, thoughts, feelings, and concerns with someone. The question is whether they’re open and willing to share that information with you.

Throughout the six books I’ve published on selling and effective communication skills, I consistently make the point that business relationships are  personal, and people ultimately buy from people. While that may seem cliché, a communication gap is created when today’s electronic and social medial mentality impedes the ability to cultivate viable and lasting business relationships.

The fear of rejection has always been the enemy for salespeople who are responsible for reaching out to prospective buyers. And now that the average response rate when leaving voice-mail messages or sending mass email is less than 1%, it’s much less taxing on the human psyche to hide behind a keyboard than to actually put yourself out there and risk being rejected.

I get that, too! I was never good at dealing with rejection, even though multiple sales managers over the years tried to pound the idea into my head that rejection comes with the territory, so deal with it.

It may sound weird, but I’ve found that the best way to deal with rejection is to win more often. Closing an important sale, or wrapping up a significant deal is an aphrodisiac that is unmatched in other professions. While you can’t expect to win ‘em all, there’s no reason you shouldn’t expect to win more than your fair share of opportunities in today’s selling environment.

I would argue that the proliferation of electronic communication tools, social media, and digital marketing have created significant opportunities for go-getters in sales to take advantage of the proficiency gap that I described earlier—to engage more prospects in more productive sales conversations.

But, you cannot simply revert to what may have been ‘business as usual’ back in the day. To truly separate yourself from the rest of the ‘noise’ in the marketplace, you have to be more purposeful, relevant, credible, and valuable than ever. That brings us to the multi-million dollar question. In today’s selling environment, how (exactly) can I (or my sales team) sustain a competitive advantage?

It is absolutely possible to get a 50%+ call back rate when leaving voice-mail messages, or 70%+ when engaging new prospects with email. But, it’s not going to happen using traditional cold calling scripts, or by being complacent with the notion that sales is a numbers game…so make more calls!

For too long, the importance of strategy and technique has been overlooked in managing, coaching, and when training sales teams. Just look around any sales organization and you will see that some sellers are significantly more effective than others, even when they’re selling the same products and services to the same types of customers.

What’s the difference maker? Personality? Luck? While there may always be an element of being in the right place at the right time, the common thread that top performers share is an ongoing commitment to continually honing their craft and developing their selling skills.

Yes, the selling environment has evolved and will continue to change. But people still buy from people. In fact, I’ve the point in my pilgrimage as a sales trainer that when a budding salesperson tries to explain to me that customers no longer want to talk to salespeople, I simply laugh. If they’re not talking with you, then I can guarantee they’re talking with one of your competitors. Everyone is sharing with someone.

The real question is, what are you doing to be proactive in your approach so that potential buyers will “want to” share their goals and objectives with you?