Julia Lustig

Asking questions shows you care and want to understand how you can effectively help them. It also means you can get all the details as to how you can craft an incredible technical solution or proposal in order to match all their needs. Cherry on the cake here is to find out what their personal goals are (at their company) - maybe they want a promotion, maybe they need this project to work to hire 10 more people. If you figure this out by asking the right questions, you can connect personal goals to project goals and create a true champion.

Your client/prospect is KING. Always let them feel like they are important and that they are right. This means if they want to talk, let them talk but by any means do not cut them off or think you are right. This should be the best-in-class experience for them, at every touch point of the buyer journey. If it isn't, you could lose them to your competitors.

The way we do it in our organisation, is trying to pre-frame every call on "what is our plan of action" with the prospect or client so that we show we prepared something in advance and get their buy-in before the big day where the demo or presentation happens. That way the client also feels more involved and confirms or not what they need (it's their ideas on paper and they cannot return on their word afterwards).

I would go beyond this and say not only show empathy but maybe give an example on how you have been through a similar situation and how tough it was so that you can show them really how much you understand. Ideally after this, give them a solution or ideas.

Start by asking the right questions whereby the answers you get are valuable in terms of their pains or outcomes. Then try to summarise what they said and say it back to them to not only show you are actively listening but also understanding them deeply and can think of a plan of action for them.