The Answer is Questions

What keeps sales managers, executives and business owners up at night? Bennett Zucker seems to have a pretty good idea:

1. Unsold and undersold inventory.
2. Sales productivity.
3. Operational inefficiency.

Zucker's expertise is in the advertising industry but that list of woes is probably universal. His prescription for the advertising community is also one that applies to nearly every business:

We need better sales training in the basics, that's for sure: Are there tools that can help us uncover the value, bring more potential buyers to the table, and get them on board easily?

The most obvious tool that springs to mind is questions. Questions are a powerful way to uncover value. They can also help you bring potential buyers to the table and get them on board. Questions are vital at every stage of the sale -- from prospecting all the way to negotiation. One of the smartest things you can do as a sales manager is teach your team to rely on thoughtful questioning as their chief selling strategy.

This month's free email IMPACT Newsletter offers some specific suggestions for using three types of questions to get to the heart of what your prospect wants.