The Strategy Question

We’re at the beginning of a quiz here at Selling with Creativity.  I am proposing some things a salesperson might do or say at a first meeting with a prospective client.  Here’s the first one and my response.

1) What is your company’s overall strategy and what are the three biggest challenges or objectives that the strategy creates for you?

I do ask this question.  It’s kind of a doozy, but it’s tremendously useful in understanding what the company and the person sitting in front of me is trying to accomplish.  And the best way (in fact the pre-requisite) to be USEFUL is to understand what challenges they are facing and what they need to accomplish.  I will follow this line of questioning until I have discovered what they think they must get done in the next twelve months, and what they see as the hurdles to getting that done. If your prospect can’t take you there, maybe you’re not talking to the right person.

This is the most important question I ask.

In the next post, I’ll address the second of twelve things one might say or do at a first meeting with a prospective client.

2) I explain the three most common problems my product solves. (Do you?)

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