Curiosity in Sales

Curiosity is a practice. The more you cultivate it through asking questions and learning to delight in new things, the more it grows. It’s a muscle that requires attention and builds on itself. Curiosity begets greater curiosity. 

It’s also critical to sales.

Sales is the discipline of solving customer needs. How can we do that if we don’t understand their unique desires, goals, and drivers? 

The way to learn those things is through curiosity. 

In our previous article of this series, we explored how we can prepare for our sales calls with compassion. In doing so, we seek to find a connection with our prospect. 

Today, we see that winning in sales stems from a genuine interest in their life and business. 

We’ll do this by exploring:

1. The origins and definition of curiosity
2. Why so many fail to cultivate it
3. How to get it

What is curiosity?

The first day of kindergarten is a well of emotions for the parent. I walked my kid to the line on the blacktop and watched her queue up knowing no one. She turned to the child in front of her and said, “Do you want to be my friend?” The child smiled and said, “Sure?! I don’t have any friends yet.” 

This is curiosity. 

It’s a willingness to engage with someone else on their terms. To be open to learning from each other and to follow the path that they lead us on. My daughter took a risk with this other kid on the playground that day. Nine years later, they are still friends!

Why are kids so good at being curious? 

For starters, they don’t weigh down their interactions with expectations. My kid didn’t know who the other kid was. She just wanted companionship. Maybe the other kid would turn out to be a bookworm or a gymnast. Who knows? Kids find out as they go and follow their curiosity where it leads. 

Second, kids don’t know anything. It’s easy to be curious when everything is new. As kids grow they look for patterns so that they can quickly make sense of the world. But the younger kids see each experience like a novel snowflake. They have a beginner’s mindset.

Finally, super young children don’t think about the transactional quality of their interactions. To put it in the sales jargon, they have no quota. Without the expectation of performance, they can “play” and that means a freedom to explore, create, and fail. 

Why Adults Suck at Being Curious

Adults are the opposite of kids on the “Curiosity Spectrum.” 

Adults have expectations and tend to approach interactions with a “what’s in it for me?” attitude. 

So often I am consumed with what people think of me. I want everyone to love me and think I’m great. In my fear of looking weak, I put up defenses that keep me from being aware of my situation and block my perception of what is happening around me. 

Curiosity, instead, is other-oriented. But adults are often just thinking about themselves. 

Nothing is worse on a sales call than a salesperson who is obsessed with looking good. 

Have you ever seen this happen? A prospect uses an acronym or some inside baseball jargon, 

“Yeah, the problem is our GBlock standards are low. Consequently, we are failing certification from PCAR. Are you familiar with PCAR?”

“Oh of course!” replies the salesperson as they surreptitiously Google search “Gblock” and “PCAR.” 

In the previous article on “Compassion in the Sales Preparation” we remarked that salespeople are so desperate to be smart. However, the customer doesn’t come to us because we know their business inside and out. They come because we can help them make progress against their problems. 

One of my best friends doesn’t have a high school degree. But there is no one else I would turn to on construction, plumbing, or electrical questions in my home. He doesn’t need to pretend, because he knows he can help me make progress with the myriad of problems my 105-year-old house is constantly producing. 

When we stop trying to look good, we open ourselves to the treasure in front of us: a human being with challenges we can solve together. 

How to Cultivate Curiosity 

So how do we get it? I think there are three key practices I’d like to encourage you to work on in your sales game.

1. Ask better questions

Broadly speaking there are two types of questions. There are legitimate inquiries and rhetorical ones. 

Legitimate inquiries lack an agenda. There is no “wrong” answer. I ask a question to learn more and connect further with my interlocutor. 

Conversely, rhetorical questions function to serve a purpose in the argument or interaction. The answer is less important here than how the question serves the case I am making. You see this all the time in sales. Maybe you walked into the Apple store recently when someone outside asks if you have “5 minutes to help the environment.” Clearly, that’s not a legitimate question. Of course, you have 5 minutes to save the planet! They aren’t asking for the answer. They ask to trap you and make you feel bad for spending $1000 dollars on a phone when you could save a turtle for a fraction of the cost. 

Some questions can be both legitimate and rhetorical depending on the posture of the one asking. For example, one might ask a prospect some version of the hackneyed, “What keeps you up at night?” They might ask this because they really want to know their challenges. Or they might just be trying to gain intelligence so they can use it against them later when they are going in for the close. 

This brings us to our second point on getting curious.

2. Focus on your inner-game 

Curiosity is an internal gauge that only you can read. The other person feels it when you have it, but only you know if it’s coming from a legitimate desire to learn and connect. You can try to fake it, but as we said curiosity is self-perpetuating. The more you do it the more curious you are. Similarly, if you are mustering false curiosity to look engaged, you will likely run out of steam. 

So when you go into a sales call, ask yourself if you are asking questions to prove a point, sound smart, or lead the prospect to your desires. Or, on the other hand, are you asking so you can really help them? Are you asking because you really care?

The magical moment in sales is when the salesperson is genuinely interested in something where the customer has a real problem to solve. That point of “genuine interest” will be different for each of us, but it’s a launching point to a real connection. 

Again, it’s something you have to check yourself on because the prospect probably won’t say anything, but they’ll feel it. 

When you ask a question, ask yourself, “Why do you want to know this?” It helps to check your intentions if you plan to really help others.

3. Focus your curiosity on sales performance

In the context of sales, curiosity is not about scratching an intellectual itch. It needs to be bound by the customer's needs. 

I recently had an expert in old doors come to our house because our door is having trouble opening and closing. The expert needed to be curious about our frustrations so he could solve our issue. However, he didn’t need to ask me about the rest of the house or our landscaping. That would have been out of his lane. 

Similarly, you have to apply your curiosity to the nature of your sales lane. Are the questions you ask helping the customer to solve their problem? Are you getting to the “job to be done” beyond the product needs?

A customer walks into a cell phone store asking for a flip phone. It’s not out of line for the sales associate to ask, “Why? What’s driving your desire for an old-school phone?” Here it may be revealed that they are buying for a teenager and they are concerned about social media’s influence on their teen. Or maybe it’s for their parent (I’m looking at you mom) who constantly pocket dials them. Or maybe they want to practice more mindfulness and limit distractions personally. Probing on these issues is personal, but it’s also fair game.

Each of these scenarios could produce different proposed solutions. By digging into the motivating factors, the salesperson can make a better pitch and increase the likelihood of a successful sale because the customer is reminded of their reason for buying. 

Another limit for your curiosity is the duration of the sales call. Are you sitting for a lunch meeting? Here you’ll have more space to feed your curiosity. A 30-minute Zoom meeting means you have to limit your discussion to a few minutes. A retail sales encounter may be limited to a few seconds. 

The key for the customer is to understand why you are asking. So you may need to receive their permission to enter a line of questions. I might say, “I understand you are coming for X. I’d like to make sure that’s the best fit for you. Do you mind if I take Y minutes to ask you a few things to understand your motivations and needs?” If you do this elegantly, you should set their mind at ease that you have their best interests in mind and that you have a self-imposed limit on how long you will interview them. 

Remember the purpose of cultivating curiosity is to help you solve their problems. Make sure you stay focused on the customer. 

Conclusion

In this series, we explore how conscious selling can open new opportunities between the seller and buyer. We open our hearts before the meetings with compassion. We learn openly from the client by focusing genuine interest in their affairs. In our final installment, next week, we will look at how we can close the client by bringing courage to our sales encounter. 

Need help in your sales interactions? Don’t hesitate to reach out. 

Best,

Stephen