01 February 2010 | Miller Heiman

If you could only ask one question of your sales team this week to move sales forward, ask this:

What are your sales calls accomplishing?

Have you ever spent 30 minutes on the phone with a prospect or customer, only to have nothing to show for it? Not only did you waste your time, you also wasted their time. And think about it – you really only have so few selling hours in a year, right?

To move any sale forward, you’ll need to ask for incremental commitments. Comments like “let me think about the proposal” or “I’ll get back to you next month” are too vague to hold anyone accountable. The key is to end every call with a commitment from the customer to do something by a specific date. A good commitment from your customer would sound similar to this:

“I’ll present this information to my boss by during our meeting next Friday and get back to you on Monday.”

But customers won’t always volunteer to do things so be prepared to ask for commitment.

“You mentioned you are meeting with your boss on Friday to discuss this initiative.  Will you present the information we discussed and get back to me with her feedback on Monday?”

At the beginning of a sale, these actions may be small in nature, but as the relationship builds, it is possible to begin asking for larger commitments. Without asking your customers to engage with you, you’re doing the heavy lifting yourself and wasting their time. If that continues, the opportunity will eventually flop. Asking for customer help will go a long way to securing business.

photo credit: Bug-a-Lug(”,)