{"id":936782,"date":"2019-07-15T13:24:09","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T20:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/customerthink.com\/?guid=a3a3c155b3182312b6d881d276b22a14"},"modified":"2019-07-15T13:26:05","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T20:26:05","slug":"are-you-asking-this-powerful-coaching-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/are-you-asking-this-powerful-coaching-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You Asking This Powerful Coaching Question?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"323\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/duGrOpehNGQ?rel=0\" width=\"574\">[embedded content]<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>One of my sales managers, Cindy, was straddling that fine line of giving her salesperson support while raising his level of sales expertise and self-awareness. The salesperson had just lost three consecutive deals, and was experiencing self-doubt and frustration.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So he was trying to make himself feel better by giving the usual excuses:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The company\u2019s prices are too high.<\/li>\n<li>I don\u2019t have enough qualified leads.<\/li>\n<li>I have the worst prospects in the company, in the world.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My very sharp sales manager recognized his emotional state and slippage into victim thinking, blaming everyone and everything for his lack of sales success. She empathized with the salesperson\u2019s frustration and self-doubt. Then she asked the powerful coaching question:<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"reviews\"><strong>\u201cWhat part of these failed deals do you need to own?\u201d<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>The salesperson was puzzled, wondering what kind of question was that. I am a victim of circumstances out of my control!<\/p>\n<p>Cindy asked a few more ownership questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What could you have done to better prepare for these meetings?<\/li>\n<li>What could you do to generate more qualified leads?<\/li>\n<li>Are the company\u2019s prices too high, or do you and I need to spend more time developing compelling questions and skills to sell value?<\/li>\n<li>Do you have the worst prospects, or do you need to invest more time in clarifying the psychographics and demographics of your best prospects?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These coaching questions helped the salesperson become aware that he was the owner of his success and in full control of future sales calls. Because\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"reviews\"><strong>That which you do not own, you cannot change.<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Salespeople that don\u2019t own their success remain victims rather than victors of their lives.<\/p>\n<p>Sales managers teach your sales team that it\u2019s OK to be disappointed and frustrated. What\u2019s not OK is renting a room and staying at that place. Encourage a short pity party and then move to another party, one where the salesperson takes control of future sales success. Salespeople control their sales success by:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Asking for more help from your sales managers and peers.<\/li>\n<li>Studying more effective ways to sell and influence.<\/li>\n<li>Practicing.<\/li>\n<li>Knowing the competition and figuring out gaps in their offerings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ownership. It\u2019s one of the most powerful skills you can teach your sales team. Because that which you do not own you cannot change.<\/p>\n<p>Good Selling!<\/p>\n<p>Check out our other <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.salesleadershipdevelopment.com\/podcast\">resources<\/a> such as this new installment of The Sales Futurists Roundtable: In Sales, Are Effective Communication Skills Becoming a Lost Art?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[embedded content]<br \/>\nOne of my sales managers, Cindy, was straddling that fine line of giving her salesperson support while raising his level of sales expertise and self-awareness. The salesperson had just lost three consecutive deals, and was experienci&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7276,"featured_media":897989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[128,92,83],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936782"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7276"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}