Assumptive questions are questions that assume that you will get what you want. In this article, we will explain why assumptive questions are useful, how we should ask assumptive close questions, and when we should ask assumptive questions. The greatest benefit of asking assumptive questions is to remove the doubts of rejection out of our brain. The confidence will show itself.

A salesperson's role involves asking questions frequently. If you approach enough potential customers, you will eventually get responses that are not a resounding YES, including counter-asks, negotiation, skepticism, hesitation, and various other responses. In this blog post, we talk about why people don’t like rejections and how salespeople can handle the inevitable pain of rejections.

Social penetration theory suggests that, as relationships develop, interpersonal communication moves from relatively shallow, non-intimate levels to deeper, more intimate ones. As people grow closer to one another, positive reinforcement through positive interactions enables them to achieve deeper levels of intimacy. With this very basic understanding of social penetration theory, we can more systematically plan out discovery questions with increasing sophistication that matches the relationship development.

Differentiation is the heart of strategy and is the reason why many companies can co-exist in the same industry. There are no two identical companies in the world. Period. The challenge that many salespeople have with communicating how they are different from others is that their differentiators all sound the same. So what can you do to differentiate yourself from competitors? There are three steps to deliver your differentiation.

There are many widely available and intuitive tips for building trust. For example, be honest, keep your commitments, be helpful, show people that you care, etc. Those are all correct but I also believe those are tips and tricks for general human beings to become good citizens. However, the ultimate strategy of trust building by sales people is first to become an expert in the field and then use that expertise to consult with the buyers for their individual needs. In other words, the salespeople who build trust most effectively can demonstrate their subject expertise and the ability to consult with their prospects.

Several decades ago, IBM's top salespeople developed a system called BANT for gauging a lead's potential for conversion. Only leads that satisfy at least three of the following four conditions of Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline should be considered a qualified-lead. BANT's strength lies in the fact that it provides salespeople with a uniform scorecard, as well as a framework within which to ask qualifying questions and collect relevant data.

An internal customer is a person within an organization who receives a service from an internal employee. Most of the time, they are people whose work directly affects the productivity of another worker. Nowadays decisions about B2B sales are rarely made by one person, so to understand the motivations of the internal customers of your buyers will help you more efficiently navigate the buying process that is otherwise invisible.

Cognitive biases are automatic thoughts that condition a response. This lets the brain make a quick decision without actively thinking about the issue or situation at hand. This article uses examples to explain three common cognitive biases in sales: the decoy effect, single-option aversion, and the bandwagon effect.

The lack of preparation is a major factor in why salespeople don't ask better discovery questions. If you have a plan or a set of tools ready ahead of time, you can prepare your discovery questions with confidence. This article covers a few general types of questions that can help you improve your skills at asking discovery questions.