My Two Favorite Sales Diagnosis Questions

When I initially dig into understanding a company’s sales model and bottlenecks, I have two favorite questions of everyone I get to meet:

1) To understand how things work:
“What’s a day in your life look like?”

2) To get a sense of what doesn’t work or is the biggest time-sink:
“What’s the biggest waste of your time and energy during your day?”

However you phrase it, the second question ALWAYS elicits useful insight into what’s not working smoothly in a company or process. Ask it of a cross-section of people and teams and I guarantee you’ll find some common root issues that are causing problems. And, as often as not, the issues aren’t hard-to-fix ones such as pricing or product strategy…but simple-to-fix issues around poor processes (especially between teams), incomplete communication, technical issues with a system, or a lack of management attention in an area.

Try it out with some of your own people and let me know how it works for you!