Sales is all about relationships. It’s about getting to the final result of making the deal and getting the new customer achieve their desired outcomes. But what we are too often missing is realizing that the sales discovery phase is the most important (even compared to the late-stage negotiation) to developing trust and rapport and, ultimately, eventually earning the deal. It’s about uncovering some of the hidden structures, like how decisions get made, what's going on in the organization and fears and apprehensions the buyer might have. Our conversation this week is with Lisa Weaver & Jay Cone, Partners and Co-Founders of Unstuck Minds, where we discuss the importance of how the sales mindset and salesperson's intentions comes through clearly- one way or another- through sales discovery. Discover what the best use of a salesperson’s time is during research, the time salespeople should actually be spending in discovery, the value of how learning 'attention agility' can help a salesperson get to what's most important to the customer, improving listening and questioning skills with customers and understanding what customers expect from initial discovery meetings. Sales discovery has less to do with hitting a goal and more with emphasizing whatever learnings come out of a discussion — which helps with the mindset shift that needs to happen for both the salesperson and customer.

“What you're going for is that the client partner on the other side feels seen, heard and valued, and that you 'get it'.” — Lisa Weaver

More about today's guests:

Unstuck Minds website: https://unstuckminds.com/

Lisa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisaevansweaver/

Jay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-cone-9108348/

FeedSpot has recently included Mental Selling as one of best sales podcasts to follow: blog.feedspot.com/sales_podcasts/