Why So Curious?!

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An important part of selling with empathy is always being curious. You should be curious, genuinely curious, about everything to do with your customer. 

You want to know about their pains, the solutions they’ve tried in the past, or anything you possibly can. The better you get to know your customer, the better the sales process will be. 

The secret is, most of the time, when you ask the right questions, the customer will tell you exactly what you need to know to deliver a great pitch. Trust me, it does happen! 

Okay, but what exactly should you be curious about?

In no particular order… 

Their Interests or Hobbies

To be totally honest with you, this is something that I never tried until COVID started. Before COVID, I didn’t really get into anything too personal when talking to a customer. I tried to be as professional, and friendly, as possible. 

When COVID hit, all bets were off. I was curious about what everyone was doing, and how they were doing personally - working from home under the lockdowns. 

The point is, I started asking more about how they were doing personally, and more importantly, started sharing more about how I was doing personally. I was amazed with how well everyone responded to it! For current customers, it actually strengthened our relationship. For new customers, it was a really terrific foundation on which our relationship could be built!

As time went on, I continued that behavior, and adapted it quite a bit. I discovered that most people responded better if I offered up something personal first. That allowed them to reciprocate, and then we could have a discussion about things that are important to both of us on a personal level. 

Today when someone asks me, “how was your weekend” I am completely honest! Lately I have been recording a lot of music, so I let people know that. 

What surprised me was how many musicians I had been speaking with for so long, and never even knew it! With a couple different long-term customers, once we started talking about music, our relationship pretty much went to a different level. They were much more willing to answer my calls, and if they missed my call, they would most certainly call me back. 

Not to mention, it makes for a more meaningful conversation when we do speak, and that is the ultimate goal of selling with empathy!

The reason this works is because you are speaking to them empathetically. Once you know what they care about, you start asking them questions about it, and they feel more connected to you as a person. Now you aren’t JUST the salesperson that calls them once in a while. 

If you want to get fancy, you could even record your customers’ interest and hobbies in a CRM so that you can send them articles, or something interesting you see that involves their hobby!

Take an interest in them as a person, and they will take more of an interest in your product. 

Their Company 

This is especially true if you are speaking to business owners. Business owners tend to be proud of their business, as they should be, and they love talking about it. 

For starters, why not ask them about the company history? Did they start the business from scratch? Did they inherit or buy it? Take an interest in their company! 

More often than not, people ask questions like, “how’s business doing” or “how did you do during the pandemic?” but that is a little too standard for selling with empathy. Dig a little deeper and show them you are genuinely curious about their company. 

Even if they aren’t the business owner, you can still be curious about your customer’s company. Typically, I suggest trying to understand how their decisions are made within the company. You can ask them how many others would have to be involved in the decision making process. 

Or, better yet, if you ask, “who else needs to be involved in this decision?” they will usually start listing names and job titles. That gives you an extremely good understanding of how their decision making process works, at least from a high-level view. 

You could also find out you’re already talking to the primary decision maker, and that is even better!

You could also just ask other questions that come to mind. I am a very curious person, so I ask a lot of questions in general. I usually ask if they’re working on any new products, or I’ll ask about one of their products that is interesting. But, you don’t have to do that if that’s not your style. 

Regardless, try asking some of the other questions we covered here, and see how well they work for you on your next few calls!

Their Products 

Whether they own or work for a company, your customers depend on the sale of some sort of product or service. Take an interest in that as well! 

Luckily, I work in a rather technical field, and I love electronics, so I am always curious about different products and how they work. So, this one is a very easy one for me personally, and is the main reason I even suggest it. 

Another reason I suggest it, besides my personal preference, is because it is still taking an interest in something that is important to them. A lot of the time, people take pride in the product their company makes or sells, and it’s obviously the source of their personal income, so the product is going to be at least a little important to them. 

Which specific questions you ask is completely dependent on the product, the industry, and pretty much everything. It’s hard to give specific examples, but it doesn’t even have to be a technical question about the product. 

You could simply ask them about their sales channel. Ask them how they sell their product; direct, retail, end user, wholesale, etc. 

Or, if they have multiple sales channels, you could ask them which is the most profitable, or which of their sales channels is the hardest to maintain for them. 

Again, it’s difficult to give relevant examples since the questions you could ask are infinite and heavily dependent on several variables. 

For example, if they sell a service, the sales channel question wouldn’t mean anything to them! Use your best judgement, and if you want to brainstorm some questions you could ask, just send me a message on LinkedIn! 

CONCLUSION

Bottom line is, do yourself a favor and take an active interest in your customer’s life, both professionally and personally. 

Now, don’t get too carried away here. There is a fine line between curious and nosey, and you don’t want to cross that line. You do not want to come across as someone who is just trying to collect data to update their CRM. 

There are also WAY more things to be curious about, but people don’t read long articles, so I had to limit myself! 

I’m curious, was this article of any value to you? Please, send me a message and let me know either way. If it wasn’t of value, that’s perfectly fine! No hard feelings!