The SE’s role is to efficiently acquire solution decisions and grow and drive revenue. You “sell while you teach”. We sometimes say you sell in stealth mode.

There are many occasions when you have contact with a customer — Phone calls, meetings, demos, proof-of-concepts, time in the lab, or casual settings like lunch. Take these opportunities and pick your spots to ask “Killer SE Questions”.

Such questions are designed to surface crucial sales intelligence that will help you grow deals and get decisions faster. In no particular order…

“How does that impact your business/job?”. We want the customer to quantify their pain. The more personal, the better. Numbers help us establish the value for our solution downstream. The more value we establish, the more compelling the solution will be, and the faster the decision will be.

“What will it cost the business if you don’t do anything? What will it mean to you?”. The “cost of doing nothing” is often lost on customers — help them visualize this cost. This gets added into your value proposition. Again, the more compelling value you can establish, the faster the decision will be. The best costs/impacts of pain are those that affect somebody’s bonus.

“Why are you doing this project now?”. We’re trying to validate that they won’t do nothing, that they must do something. Alternatives: “Why not wait?”. “Why haven’t you done something in the past?”. “Do you think they’re really going to do this project?”. “What is driving your timeframe?”.

“What else concerns you about…?”. Dig for pain (see the Digging for Pain blog posting). The more pain, the more solution you can apply, and therefore grow your deals. When a customer gives any indication there is a problem, dive into it, dig deep, and dig for more. And yes, it is the SE’s job to dig for business pain — given your Trusted Advisor status, technical constituents will be more likely to be up-front with you than your sales counterpart. “Why is that?” “How long has this been happening?” See the first question.

“As you evaluate your options, how will the decision process work?”. This is a very powerful question. It will surface Who, Why, What, How, and When. It leads to discussions of who is involved, who talks to who, hopefully who the technical decision maker is (the final technical yes), what this person’s decision criteria are, their business requirements, technical requirements, and when the decision will happen.

“What constraints am I under as I configure your solution?”. This is a backdoorsy way of asking about, among other things, their budget!

“What is……. and why?”. Take a closed-ended question and open it up. Get the customer talking. Example: “What are your performance requirements, and why?”. Alternative: “What do you mean by…?”.

Good SElling!