GPI 423 – Ask your sales personnel questions about your customers and prepare to get surprised.

It is easy to forget just how much information your sales people know, but neglect to convey to you, their employer. This neglect is normally not deliberate. Sales people think that everyone knows what they know about the marketplace but they do not.

Ask questions; be prepared to be surprised.

Take the time to ask your sales people some simple basic questions periodically. You need to assume you do not know everything about the marketplace. You must adjust your thinking based upon what is discovered and not what you thought on your own.

Here are some suggested questions that you can modify to the needs of your own firm.

Questions to ask your main sales people:

• What is the easiest product/service of our company to sell?
• What is the hardest product or service of our company to sell? And why are those products hard to sell?
• What does the average American think about our company products?
• Do they like them? If they like them but do not buy them, is that because they are getting what they need with cheaper alternatives?
• Which products do the customers like the best?
• Which of our products do the customers disregard as too pricey? Or unnecessary?
• Which products do they think are too expensive or pricey?
• Is our freight policy driving people away?
• What are their reasons for not buying to buy our product?
• What product is not popular, no matter what we do?
• What product sells itself?
• What are the best incentive programs we run for customers? Which were worthless and nonproductive?
• What is the one attribute you tell potential customers about our company that surprises them?
• What are we missing in our advertising campaign that would help sell the company?
• What product or service does our company do a lousy job or making or performing?
• Are there any services we should not offer to customers?
• Are there any services we should offer to customers (that they request frequently)?
• What are we missing from our product list we need to add in the future?
• How would you change our advertising brochures to make it easier to sell?
• What does the customer not seem to understand about our company? About our products/services?
• What do people (buyers) want regardless of the price charged?
• What product seems to have very little drop in demand regardless of how expensive it is?
• Does it make any difference that we are only 47 miles from the shipping channel? 10 miles from the train station? 15 miles from a bus station?
• Do we have enough inside sales staff? Do customers complain about how difficult it is to place an order?
• Is there any inside sales person we have that we should consider replacing? Or offer further training?