AGRICULTURE INDUSTRY
IMPROVEMENT IN CRITICAL SALES SKILL #3: QUESTIONING/LISTENING
QUESTIONING/LISTENING. Great listeners ask great questions. The best salespeople don’t just ask questions; they ask the best questions. These are the questions that allow you to develop a better understanding of the customer’s situation and demonstrate your sincere interest in the customer. Salespeople who do this the best, sell themselves to the customer. The ‘salesperson’ is the first buying decision that the customer makes. When it’s made in your favor the rest of the buying decisions become far easier to achieve.
REMARKABLE FINDINGS ABOUT QUESTIONING/LISTENING SKILLS IN THE AGRICULTURE INDUSTRY
- The skill improvements in the Agriculture Industry were significant and produced a substantial ROI from the investment in time to improve Questioning Skills.
- Questioning Skills improvement has implications on other critical skills such as Presentation Skills. I.e. If key needs are not uncovered with questions, presentations cannot accurately hit the mark.
The Agriculture Industry started with selling skills that were lower than the Universe. It appeared that Agriculture salespeople were receiving some level of sales skills training prior to this training initiative but not at a level with the Universe.
Final Knowledge and Application scores were higher than the Universe. Overall skill gain was significant at 119% (dramatically greater than the Universe at 86%). Key skills that were enhanced included: Buyer/Seller Relationship, Sales call Planning, Presentation Skills and Gaining Commitment. Salespeople in Agriculture were hungry for sales training. They showed the highest level of sales skill improvement of any single industry.