Sales Professionals Eat Curiosity For Breakfast, Are You?
Larry Levine
In a world of empty suits, I’m leading a movement of authenticity, integrity, and trust inside the sales profession
"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."
??Walt Disney
Mediocre, average, ordinary or complacent - these would not be qualities associated with successful salespeople.
Curious professionals make an impact, achieve success and smash their sales targets.
Being insanely curious is a required character trait if you wish to master business disruptions.
All sales professionals put learning into overdrive, are you?
A naturally curious professional places themselves in the client’s shoes, digs in deep to uncover business barriers and then guides them down the road to business betterment.
“When you are curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.”
Walt Disney
What is your daily appetite for curiosity?
Curiosity is essential. It drives your ability to make new connections and engage. The more engaged you become the more inclined you are to ask meaningful questions; the more you learn and uncover the more you grow the relationship.
- A curious professional finds enthusiasm and interest in their career
- A curious professional is open-minded
- A curious professional is inquisitive and wants to know why
- A curious professional is not shy to ask questions and seek out answers
INSANELY CURIOUS
Curiosity can be developed with the right mindset.
Words which come to mind with curious salespeople: intense desire to know something, eagerness, questioning, interested, detectives, thirst for knowledge and inquisitive.
Insanely curious salespeople are constantly thirsty for success!
Curiosity is mission critical to your sales success because it signals a hungry mind.
Being inquisitive, means you are open to new experiences. It is through these new experiences that you can generate more original ideas, leading to simple solutions to complex problems for your clients.
CURIOUS SALES PROFESSIONALS SMASH THEIR SALES TARGETS
Being curious means always wondering WHY. What is behind your sales WHY?
Curious salespeople think and act on a different plain. They identify and ask questions that solicit deeper results.
Sales reps ask surface level questions, sales professionals dig below the surface to uncover the root cause.
SALES PROFESSIONALS VALUE CURIOSITY
According to the Oxford dictionary, curiosity is a strong desire to know or learn something.
Those that latch onto curiosity and are not afraid to try it, explore it, poke at it, question it and then turn it inside out.
I truly believe it’s more effective to act as if no one knows you or recognizes the value you bring as this makes you have to prove it every day.
Curious salespeople have no issues asking their clients...
- What value do my services, products or solutions create for you?
- What does value-add look like to you?
Sustaining value in the minds of your customers requires persistence and extreme focus.
This is what curious salespeople are all about... an obsession with understanding value.
CURIOUS PROFESSIONALS TAKE RESPONSIBILITY
Average sales reps always make excuses and point fingers for everything bad that happens to them. It’s the economy, the leads are weak, the competition has better products, buyers are idiots, we’re too expensive, our service is horrible; stop the freaking excuses!
Curious salespeople see all of this as learning opportunities.
They learn to do something different and practice different ways of progressing towards achieving sales success.
They view roadblocks as learning opportunities and become obsessed with the identifying as many ways as possible to improve.
A curious sales professional applies a beginner's mind.
Are you constantly on the lookout and open-minded for new and novel ways of enhancing your sales career?
SALES PROFESSIONALS ARE CURIOUS ABOUT THEIR CLIENTS
The top sales professionals know their clients deserve more than just a "check-in or touching base" phone call.
They recognize the importance of exploring their clients' beliefs, challenges, what drives them and most importantly, what they want to accomplish.
Innately curious salespeople are ready to ask the right questions, provide the right insight and respond with answers.
I am curious...
- Are you making sure your clients feel special before, during and after doing business with you?
- Are you making your clients feel important?
- Do your clients feel that you care about them?
- Do your clients feel like they can trust you?
Curious salespeople focus on developing conversations, not sales campaigns. It is about opening up human to human conversation.
When was the last time you had a conversation with one of your clients that did not involve trying to sell them something?
What would it look like for you if you became more curious on behalf of your clients?
What could you help your clients do better?
With curious intent, spend some time with your clients and ask them how you have been enhancing their experience with you?
STOP AND THINK FOR A MOMENT
The one thing separating successful salespeople and others who are merely surviving or should I say, being complacent; is their desire to learn as curiosity ignites it.
Successful salespeople never stop learning. In turn, they translate their new understandings into innovative ideas for their clients.
I encourage you to break out of complacent, default modes of thinking. Recycling old ideas with traditional sales approaches doesn't help you smash your targets or satisfy your clients.
Operate within your sales career based upon curiosity.
In the words of the great Albert Einstein...
"The important thing is not to stop questioning; curiosity has its own reason for existing."
I understand, I get where you all are coming from. Every day, I walk in your shoes. I am fully committed to helping your sales team integrate social aspects and heartfelt strategies into your current sales process to grow new business. I want you to get results. This is why I am passionate about doing this the right way, the genuine way, the authentic way! It's about understanding value before visibility.
Selling From the Heart is making a difference! I poured my heart into every page of this book and I think you're going to love it. You can find it on Amazon in paperback, kindle and in audio. You can click on the book image below and this will take you to Amazon.
You can find more material inside Selling From The Heart.
In a world full of empty suits, I'm passionate about helping sales reps succeed by getting valuable before they get visible. I help sales teams understand the true value they bring to the market.
I appreciate getting the opportunity to share my stories. Integrating the use of social and sharing my story on LinkedIn was my “game-changer” in the highly competitive office technology world. With great pride I transform, challenge, coach and inspire sales teams to grow new business by helping them share their story and how they communicate it out by integrating the use of social inside the sales process. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and on my podcast by clicking on Selling from the Heart.
ABC = Always Be Curious | Influential Communicator | Creating and Executing Dynamic Solutions | Scuba & EFR Instructor
4 年I've worked for some folks who held the Glengarry Glen Ross model of #sales and #salesleadership near in dear. "Coffee is for closers" and my favorite since I don't care about coffee, "Always be closing". I always laughed at that (though internally so as to not provoke the dragon) - ABC has and will always be to me Always Be Curious. I live by that. The more I know, the better I can serve others. #servantleader #salescoaching #alwaysbecurious
Sales Pioneer - helping you sell that which has never been sold before!
4 年My insane curiosity leads me to be more interested rather than trying to hog the spotlight and be interesting. There's time for that later once I've made my newest client feel fascinating.
Trusted Technology Advisor
4 年Great excerpt Larry! Rachel Saunders - you might like this
Consultant/Speaker/Interviewer and Host of End Of The Day With Ray! CEO/Founder
4 年Larry Levine - Selling From The Heart great message here. I say, "Curiosity is the birth of Innovation." Those who stay continuous in their quest to learn will discover the things those stuck in status quo miss. Have a great week my friend
CEO and Founder of Quantum Business Solutions | HubSpot Partner | Sales Automation | Grow Your Business | On a Mission to Modernize Revenue GROWTH for SMB | 40 Under 40 | Yogi. Speaker. Leader. Coach. Friend. Volunteer.
4 年A genuine curiosity is so huge!