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5 Tips to Instantly Improve Your Sales Calls
Questions are an integral part of effective communication. Questions help us understand one another. Questions convey interest. Questions clarify intent. Questions engage. When we think of who a great questioner might be, we usually think of lawyers/attorneys, news reporters/journalists, doctors and therapists/counselors. However, we tend to overlook the people and professions that may benefit the most! Think about Leaders, regardless of industry. What about parents? Perhaps Coaches? Students? Definitely Salespeople. In fact, the optimal range of questions asked for a strong sales conversion rate is roughly 11 to 14 questions. (Allison Brooks, HBR) The truth is EVERYONE benefits from improving their questioning skills. Here’s how to hone your questioning skills instantly! 1) Listen. It will be nearly impossible to improve your questioning skills, if you first cannot listen intently. During a conversation, most great questions are built upon real time information and dialogue. The old sales adage of the 80/20 rule is quite helpful here: listen 80% and speak 20%. 2) Open Ended. The fastest way to more engaging conversations, better understanding and overall better questioning, is to simply make your question open ended. For example, instead of asking your prospective Customer “Is this something you’d like to buy?”, ask them “How many would you like to purchase?”. Eliminate the easy no, while opening the door to understand more of what is going on inside your customer’s mind. For those in Leadership, open ended questions are great for uncovering details, opinions and to transition into feedback or coaching conversations. For parents, try asking more engaging, open-ended questions such as “What was the most exciting part of your day today?” instead of simply asking “How was your day?”. Even reframing the most insignificant of questions throughout your day can help build good questioning habits. 3) Give Options When you need to maintain control, whether on a sales call or at home with your toddler, asking strategic questions with options is a great tool. This questioning tool only works if there are two different options you will be satisfied with, regardless of what is chosen. On a Sales call, instead of asking your potential Client/Customer “When should I follow up with you”, ask them “Would you prefer I follow up with you in one week or in two?”. Perhaps you ask an employee of yours “Would you prefer to write up your report before or after our team meeting?” And for the parents, this approach can work wonders. It’s empowering to the child and can help foster a sense of confidence for them as well. The next time you start to demand your child pick up their toys, try asking this instead: “Would you like to pick up your toys before or after dinner today?”. In my opinion, great questioning is simply muscle memory. It takes practice and repetition to develop, along with usage to maintain. For additional information on the Art of Questioning or for a personalized Coaching session to improve your questioning, regardless of industry or application, email kat@thekoway.com
You've decided to search for your next dream job. The workforce is primarily remote and virtual video interviews are the new normal, but you’ve never had to interview this way before. What do you do and where do you start? Here are a few tips and tricks to ensure you crush your interview: LOOK THE PART You may be at home, but wrinkled shirts and pajama pants don't scream HIRE ME. We’ve all heard of the “professional from the waist up look” too, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Play it safe and dress the whole part, not just half the part. Not only will this prevent embarrassing mishaps, but it’ll increase confidence and help shift you into a more professional mindset before the interview. BE AWARE OF YOUR BACKGROUND/SURROUNDINGS No one wants to hire you because of how your bedroom looks. If you don’t have the most attractive space to set up, take time in advance to set up a virtual background. Almost every video conferencing platform has this feature, and you can choose a solid, neutral color to be less distracting. Pro-Tip: the virtual backgrounds work best when you have a wall or solid surface directly behind you. Find a few places in your home to test your virtual background on first, to ensure the quality of the look ANGLES MATTER. You don’t have to be a “selfie” king or queen to nail the right angle. Find a space that allows for your laptop or computer camera to be at eye level. This will help increase “eye contact” during the virtual interview and prevent uncomfortable posture as well. Keep in mind that when you’re looking at the interviewer(s) on screen, it may give the impression of wandering eyes. When you look away from the camera, it may cause the appearance of you looking off screen, down or away. This is usually not a great look. Prevent it by dragging any important documents (resume, notes, etc) as close as possible on screen to where your camera is located. ELIMINATE ALL DISTRACTIONS Our homes can be chaotic (especially during pandemic times). Even if your kids/pets/spouse are home, find a way to ensure they don’t become a part of your interview (unless they are excellent closers of course). Picking a low traffic area in your home is key to avoiding unwanted interruptions. And keep in mind, your virtual background helps increase your room options! PRACTICE Practice makes perfect, right? Once you have found your perfect area, set up your computer to eye level, picked out your virtual background and accepted that this is our new normal for a while, schedule a test run. You can use the free version of Zoom to do a mock video interview with a friend, spouse, family member, etc. Ask them about your lighting, your background, your eye contact and background noise. Make adjustments as needed and make note of what the ideal setup is so you can replicate it over and over again. TEST EVERYTHING TWICE Just because you did one test interview with your best friend a week ago doesn’t mean you’re in the clear for your video interview today. You MUST test everything before each interview. This includes your computer, internet connection, camera, microphone and background. You want to be comfortable during the interview and technical problems will only increase your nerves, while distracting you from what matters most – your dream job! For additional interview tips and interview preparation coaching, email kat@thekoway.com