Deb Calvert is the President of People First Productivity Solutions, offering sales training, coaching, and leadership development programs. Deb also leads the Stop Selling & Start Leading® movement and founded The Sales Experts Channel.

In this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Deb explains how we can use selling questions to remain in control of the sales conversation.

Resources:

Deb on LinkedIn

PeopleFirstPS.com

Book: DISCOVER Questions Get You Connected: for professional sellers

Book: Stop Selling and Start Leading: How to Make Extraordinary Sales Happen

Book: Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations

TheSalesExpertsChannel.com

Transcript

Will Barron:

Coming up on today’s episode of the Salesman podcast.

 

Deb Calvert:

Your role as being a leader in any sales conversation. The word origin of lead is guide. So you are the guide. What buyers really want is to be inspired and to be led. If you be as a leader, you become perceived as a leader, and leaders, they operate in the realm of something that’s of interest to others.

 

Will Barron:

Hello, Sales Nation. My name is will Barron, and I’m the host of the Salesman podcast. The world’s most downloaded B2B sales show. And on today’s episode, we have the legend that is Deb Calvert. She is the author of Discover Questions. One of the only sales specific books that I recommend to you guys, Sales Nation, and to anyone else who wants to learn how to sell as well. And we’ll get into questions on this episode, how to use questions to stay in control of the sale, no matter what stunts your buyers are trying to pull on you. Everything that we talk about is available in the show note to this episode over at salesman.org. And with that, let’s jump right into it.

 

Who Between the Buyer and the Salesperson Should be in Control of the Sales Conversation? · [01:21] 

 

Will Barron:

Conversations is what I want to talk about in this episode. We’re going to look at how we can put ourselves, to use your words, in the driving seat of sales conversations moving forward. But let’s get right back to basics here for someone who’s perhaps relatively new to sales, whose job is it to control and drive a sales conversation forward? Is it the salesperson or is it that we should be listening to the buyer and we should just be sucking up to them and doing whatever they say and letting them be in control of the whole sales process?

 

“Let’s use this metaphor. Imagine being in a car and someone’s in the driver’s seat and that should be the salesperson, but I think that the buyer should be metaphorically the navigator they should absolutely be involved and you should be very closely listening to them. But before you can even get those roles worked out,