“By asking the question, we can gain additional clarity and understand things from the perspective of others to be in a better position, to actually serve the customers we work with.” – Jacquelyn Nicholson & Mike Simmons in today’s Tip 1363
Do you seek clarity?
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Jacquelyn Nicholson on LinkedIn
Jacquelyn Nicholson on Sales Success Stories Interview
Mike Simmons on LinkedIn
Catalyst Sale
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tips is a little bit unique as it features both Jacquelyn Nicholson and Mike Simmons in the first of several joint tips they recorded together. Here they are:
Jacquelyn Nicholson: I’ve been thinking a lot about clarity, Mike.
Mike Simmons: What do you mean?
Jacquelyn Nicholson: Well, I feel like sometimes my prospect or my customer and I are not on the same page, and I often have to find myself seeking clarity. And it’s actually something a coach of mine taught me years ago. Shout out to Rive if you’re listening to this, of no one can really fault you when you’re seeking clarity. So if you’re just like, look, I’m just trying to understand her. I’m just looking for some clarity here. Can you help me understand this? It’s a non-confrontational phrase. It’s a really gentle way to get into a conversation, to get to the heart of the matter. That might not necessarily be an easy conversation, but if you go at it the wrong way, you’re not going to get the clarity that you seek. So that’s just one of my thoughts about clarity is, it’s something that is going to help both people, right? It’s going to help the prospect, it’s going to help you.
Mike Simmons: Well, and I did it there. When I asked you the question, what do you mean? I felt comfortable, right?
Jacquelyn Nicholson: I didn’t even know you did it. That was good.
Mike Simmons: And that’s the thing. Like, we can have these natural conversations with people. We’re generally interested in the perspective of others or getting a deeper understanding of what it was that we think we heard so that we can confirm that validate an understanding. And we can do that with asking simple questions, sharing information, and then asking a follow-up question. What else you have?
Jacquelyn Nicholson: Well, I think about it in terms of when you and I first met, actually in Austin. You were running an idea by me, and I was like, I really love that. And you said, what do you love about it? And you know what? Usually, people will just stop with the first answer, right? And as salespeople, we can get into this trap. Like, you know, you hear your prospect or your customers say something, and instead of digging in and asking a clarifying question or another open-ended question to tease out some more details, you jump right to telling them something or selling them something or like, oh, this is my point where I can dive in. But you didn’t let me do that. I said, I really love that idea, and I was ready to ask you some questions about it. You’re like, why do you say that? I was like, what do you love about it? I think it was exactly what you said, so I thought that was great, and you have that gift. And I have really tried to exercise more of that, channeling my inner Mike Simmons.
Mike Simmons: Here’s the next questions. I think we’ll get into this in the next one. But simplifying those questions, if we ask questions, it demonstrates a level of interest, a level of curiosity. We’re interested in knowing something. I’m not going to ask a question if I’m not really interested in learning more about it. I don’t need to manufacture that kind of stuff. If I want to share perspective, I’m happy I can share perspective. And if your response would have been, well, I don’t know, tell me more, then I could have told you more, but I read there was going to be some other thing that was going to come up through it. But by asking the question, we can gain additional clarity and understand things from the perspective of others to be in a better position, to actually serve the customers we work with.
Jacquelyn Nicholson: Oh, absolutely. Like one of my favorite Stephen Covey things to seek first to understand before you seek to be understood.
Mike Simmons: I can’t think of there a way to wrap up that one. That’s an awesome, Stephen Coveyism.
Scott Ingram: For links to connect with both Jacquelyn and Mike, and also to see the video version of this tip, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1363. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!