There are myriad resources telling you all about the art of asking questions in sales - if you've not come across any, it's worth googling.

Everyone knows about open and closed questioning techniques - high impact questions, directional, and and and...

Sales effectiveness isn't about asking questions - IMHO - it's about curiosity...having an interest that goes beyond superficially asking a list of questions. Sales isn't about police-style interrogation...it's about curiously getting underneath the skin of your prospect in a meaningful and sincere way.

struggling with the concept - think PINT OF GUINNESS...the white stuff is you talking and the black stuff is you listening.

Build your questions around that, if you like

Most businesses will admit to following a strategic model for business development activities yet when things go wrong or a challenge appears from the competition or the marketplace, occasionally they head straight for tactics.

In his biography Alastair Campbell talked in depth about OST - objectives, strategy, tactics - I have interviewed PR Smith on this podcast in the past - where he talks about his business model PR Smith's SOSTAC® Planning methodology.

It's important to always have a clear objective that you can refer to - in good times or in bad.

I use PR Smith's model for all my business development work simply because it's intuitive and makes planning really easy for both sales and marketing functions.

Some time ago I received a letter from a company who were representing a number of media companies and photography agencies.

2 letters actually, in and around the same time.

Both asking for a serious amount of money to pay for a license for misuse of 2 images...otherwise court and a big fine and costs.

Google the company...PicRights...not something that you want to get caught up in because the hassle and cost is far far greater than any cool use of an image - in my case Lionel Messi and Russian soldiers marching in Red Square on May Day parade.

Having worked in marketing for a car manufacturer and a car retailer, having coached a number of sales teams within the automotive sector, I still fall back on my role as a customer when it comes to critiquing the sector.

Too often it's easy to criticise - for me, way too often and so it is always good to be able to give credit where it is due.

I was buying a car for a friend coming over to Ireland from France - simple requirements, buy an automatic costing less than £10,000.

This is a brief story of that journey and how a tangible lack of interest by 2 car dealers made me buy a more expensive car with 10,000 more miles on the other side of the country,

Richy Donnelly is an entrepreneur and elite athlete, running the very excellent Natur&Co in Co Tyrone and playing Tyrone club Football with Trillick and inter county with Tyrone.

WE had been in conversation way back before COVID about his desire and vision to set up a coffee shop with a focus on natural ingredients and wholesome foods, wellbeing and fitness - today his coffee shop, Natur&Co just outside Omagh is the embodiment of his vision.

In the podcast we talk about the challenges of being an entrepreneur, following the vision, setting up a business in the current climate and trying to fit in life around the demands of inter county football.

It's fashionable to talk about 'brand storytelling' but how many businesses actually succeed at communicating their business/brand narrative either through websites, marketing collateral or sales pitches?

Jonny Willox is a student of English Language, professional story teller, dramatist and actor.

He recently launched his first book into the children's book market with The Hairy Fairy.

No tenuous link to business here - far from it. Jonny discusses the journey he has taken to get to a point where he is a published author with another 4 works on the cusp of publication.

He discusses the challenges he faces writing to 2 audiences - parent and child, writing structure, knowing and respecting your audience, pace of writing and so much more but all of it relevant to your work as a business owner or sales lead.

One takeaway is the importance of consistency - writing all the time, embracing mistakes and failures but having the resilience to keep moving.

SOUND FAMILIAR???

Brand story telling has its origins in a post advertising world but much of what it is can be traced back to story telling and songwriting. Success leaves clues and Steve Earle leaves plenty across a body of work that spans half a century.

How can your brand story be influenced by the work of one of country-musics most iconic, controversial and durable songwriters?

Referenced in the podcast:

- Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey

- Park Howell www.businessofstory.com

- Dave Linton www.madlug.com

- Randy Olsen, Houston We have a narrative

- Donald Millar, Building A Story Brand

- Steve Earle and The Del McCory Band, The Mountain,

The Irish playwright, Marie Jones has a strong body of work - most notably for me, Stones in His Pockets and the Blind Fiddler.

My introduction to hurling followed the path of the Blind Fiddler - an introduction to one of the worlds sporting masterpieces, The All-Ireland hurling final.

The weekend past, Tyrone and Ireland lost a sporting legend - Damian Casey, reminiscent of the death of Cormac McAnallen who died in 2004.

A sad day for his family, friends, for those that played for and against him and for those that looked one rom the sidelines.

Over the course of this and the last series of podcasts, I had tried to uncover some of what it takes to build high performing teams in sales - more often than not, talking about improving performance in a way that is both relevant and meaningful to business owners and sales management in the SME sector.

In this episode I talk with Noel Slane from Irish start up, Food Guard. Noel has experience and an excellent track record when it comes to high performance sales and building high performance sales teams.

From his recent experience with US based Cyber Security Company, #OPSWAT and in his latest start up FoodGuard, Noel talks about building teams from the bottom up - recruiting for values over academia, achieving stellar sales performance and building an SDR team in Carrickmore, Co Tyrone who sell into some of the toughest markets in the world - Defence, Public Sector, Bio-pharma, Finance....

Noel shares some valuable insights that would benefit business owners, sales directors, C-suite leaders as well as those sales people who are keen to improve their own performance.

The common thread in many of these podcasts is culture and the importance of values that resonate amongst the sales team - not just for the sales team but also the business owners and directors. Noel shares his experience of a number of companies - some that get it right and some that don't.

Check out Noel's new business www.foodguard.ie

The Law of The Instrument is a cognitive bias based on - "if you only have a hammer, then everything is a nail."

For years in sales all I had was features, benefits and questions - and not always the right kind of questions either.

Today organisations and customers expect more from their sales contacts - much more. Features and benefits, whilst having some importance are irrelevant if the seller is unable to build rapport with the buyer.

Asking questions brings 'interrogation' to mind. And by all accounts that type of thing is unpleasant.

In this podcast I talk about the importance of 'curiosity' and understanding "the picture in the other persons head."

And an entry discussion to emotional intelligence...

Thanks for reading and for listening.