Back to basics: Pay attention!

During a recent sales-training workshop, the topic of asking questions during the discovery stage of the sales process came up.

Every single attendee stated adamantly that he invested time asking his prospect questions.

As the program continued, we discussed the importance of summarizing their new-found knowledge before launching into their sales presentations.

At that point, one participant admitted that he didn’t really listen to his prospect’s responses and simply went through the motions to give the impression he was listening.

“I don’t care about the other guy. I just want to close the deal” were his actual words. What shocked me most was that several other people expressed the same sentiment.