One thing that consistently stands out in sales is the ability to gather information. I’m not talking about personal information like family, home, education and the rest. That information is important for building rapport, but many salespeople (i.e. schmoozers) never move past that level.

The national sales team with whom we work has a strong sales manager who is constantly beating this drum. He implores his team to go beyond the excitement of a potential deal and start asking the straight questions about competition and pain.

The sales manager’s approach is excellent in that they sell in a competitive market where customer loyalty is almost lacking.  The service is viewed as an unsophisticated commodity so you can imagine how price sensitive the customers are.  These types of industries present a seductive option for salespeople – quoting.  Quoting is fine.  Quoting without qualifying is not.

No work should begin on a quote without first having all qualifying information collected by the salesperson.

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