Asking Questions in Colour

“You can tell a man is clever by his answers. You can tell a man is wise by his questions."

Asking questions is one of the best ways I know to get information. But not all questions are created equal. Insightful and profound questions invite equally insightful and profound answers. In sales great questions bring out lots of valuable information about the customer’s needs, desires and concerns. So, how do you ask great questions that uncover the real facts, opinions and feelings?
1) Get in the flow of Open -> Closed Questions: The first thing to keep in mind when asking questions is to start with open questions and then progressively move to more closed questions as you seek more specific information. Only when you have reached a clear and quantified response to a specific question should you move on to the next question area.
2) Ask White, Green, Black and Red Questions: This is a simple and easy way to remember a powerful sequence of questions that go directly to the real issue(s) that will directly uncover a maximum of information, rich in facts, opinions and feelings. How does it work?
You need to remember two things: 1) what each colour represents and 2) to always use the questions in same colour sequence - white, green, black and red.
White Questions: Current situation. Facts, data and information. Think of white snow: pure, cold hard facts. Example: “How would you characterize your Managed Services business in the Small and Medium Business market segment in Western Europe today?”
Green Questions: Desired situation. Future state. Think of grass, trees, growth, what a situation can become. Example: “Looking to the future, where would you like your business to be 12 months from now?”
Black Questions: Obstacles, contraints or limitations. Important and powerful, yet often left unasked. Think of night time or being in the dark, you can’t see in the dark. Turn on the light to see what stands between you (your current position) and where you want to go (your desired future situation). Example: “What do you see as being the major challenges or constraints you will face in getting there?”
Red Questions: Feelings. Fire, red is an explosive color, highly emotionally charged. Example: “If any one of these constraints significantly delayed your progress against plan, what would be the impact on you and your team?”

Once you have got answers to these four questions you can determine not only what to sell but more importantly how to sell. Experiment by asking questions in colour at your next customer meeting and you will discover that you gain more and richer information that will help you to make more sales. You will also discover that you will be seen as a valued resource by your customers.

Ideas That Stick

One of the determinant skills that separates good from great sales people is how great sales practitioners can get across their ideas and then get their ideas permanently embedded in the heads of the people they are talking to. The word “sticky” has become part of today’s business vocabulary and very clearly describes the desired outcome of ‘making a lasting impression’ or ‘creating residual impact’ or ‘moving someone’s position - permanently’. There are 6 simple steps to being able to create “sticky ideas” which is the subject of recent book that I found fascinating.
“Made to Stick. Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” by Chip Heath & Dan Heath, Random House Inc., 2007.
The 6 principles are easy to remember because they make up the word SUCCESs: 1) Simple, 2) Unexpected, 3) Concrete, 4) Credible, 5) Emotional, and 6) Stories. The 6 principles or steps work like this:
SIMPLE: Find the core of your idea and then share the core. Get laser focus on one simple, profound, powerful and concentrated idea.
UNEXPECTED: use surprise to get attention, and then use interest to hold attention.
CONCRETE: help people understand and remember, and then help people coordinate.
CREDIBLE: help people to believe and then agree by using external credibility using authority & anti-authority, and internal credibility using convincing detailed information – statistics, data, reports, etc.
EMOTIONAL: make people care, use the power of association, appeal to self-interest & appeal to identity
STORIES: get people to act. Stories as simulation (tell people how to act). Stories as inspiration (give people energy to act)

Selling is all about getting our ideas to stick. You cannot influence, convince or persuade someone of something without affecting some lasting, permanent change in the thinking or position of the other person. Whether you are in sales or not, we are all “selling” our ideas all day every day to everyone we meet. At work with our colleagues or our Manager, socially with our friends, and at home with our Partner or our children. Sticky ideas are the key to moving people in our direction. Selling is simply a specific transactional application of getting our ideas (sales messages) to stick. Success in selling is and always will be determined by our ability to get our ideas to stick.

Changing People's Minds by Communicating with Emotion

The way to move people to action is through emotion. Whether you want to change someone's mind or get them to take action on something they are already in agreement with. Emotion is the key. Think of emotion as energy in motion. People respond to emotion and make decision based on emotions and then justify their decisions with logic and rational arguments and then defend their decisions with supportive facts. So to change someone's mind you must give them both the emotional reasons and the rational arguments. This will require you to first uncover their true motivations, drivers, desires and wants as well as their needs. Communicating with emotion means using energy and enthusiasm to connect at all levels - mental, emotional and spiritual. Communicating with emotion means demonstrating your conviction in your position, argument or beliefs.
“The height of your accomplishments will equal the depth of your convictions.” - William F. Scolavino
You earn the right to ask questions if they are motivated by your sincere interest to understand other people and their situation. Then listen with your eyes. Yes, with your eyes...

• 7% Verbal (Words only)
• 38% Verbal (tone of voice, speed of speech, facial expressions, etc.)
• 55% Non Verbal (Body language)

If you listen only with your ears you can expected to get 45% of the message at the very best, because the greater part of the information is emotional and is communicated through visually observable indicators like facial expressions and body language.
Great salespeople use emotion to connect and communicate with others, earn the right to ask diagnostic questions and listen with their eyes and hear with their minds.

"Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.”

Becoming A Trusted Advisor

Speaking to the EEMEA sales team at Orange Business Services Sales Kick-Off 2007 in Faro, Portugal. The key ideas presented in "How to Over-Achieve in 2007 by becoming a Trusted Advisor" were:

• The Sales Cycle vs the Buying Decision Process


• Stages of Sales Proficiency


• Building Trust


• Creating Credibility: Expected vs Exceptional Credibility


• Engaging Diagnostic Conversations


• Asking questions with impact


• Listening with your eyes


• Sight vs Insight. Sight = seeing with your eyes. Insight = seeing with your mind


• Communicating in Technocolour


• Using Emotion = Energy in Motion


• Creating a Culture of Excellence

How Great Sales Professionals Create and Use Networks

In the January 2007 edition of Harvard Business Review, there is a great article entitled: "How Leaders Create and Use Networks." What I found extremely insightful and highly applicable to sales was the Three Forms Of Networking:
1) Operational. where most contacts are internal (within your company) and specific to functions and skills required to getting the current job done.
2) Personal. here contacts are mostly external and oriented to current interests and potential future interests and also a wonderful source of references.
3) Strategic. here contacts are internal and external to your organisation often with experience and expertise very different to our own and orientated towards the future.
I see a huge level of applicability to sales. Let me explain by taking a quote from the article.
"What differentiates a leader from a manager, research tells us, is the ability to figure out where to go to enlist the people and groups necessary to get there." If we replace "leader" by great sales professional and "manager" by good sales professional, I think you will find that we have captured the single biggest difference between what separates good from great in sales today.
Success in sales tomorrow will be increasingly dependent on a) our ability to reinvent ourselves, ie. find new ways of defining our role in sales and b) developing new relationships, ie. networking. These two factors will enable us to deliver new levels of value to our customs.