If you could pick just one area in which to train your salespeople next year, what would it be? Or to put it another way: do you know which one skill, if mastered by your reps, will have the biggest impact on your sales results? It’s questioning – and ironically, this is the area in which reps tend to score the lowest in diagnostic testing, says Nancy Martini, CEO of PI Worldwide, a global consulting company specializing in leadership and sales development. Martini, who has tested and trained thousands of sales reps, says sales managers who pay attention to this crucial area are certain to see sales growth.

"Questioning skills are the number one separator between adequate reps and top producers," says Martini. "It has the biggest impact on sales results and at the same time tends to be the area that needs the most work." Her observations are based on years of testing using PI Worldwide’s "Selling Skills Assessment Tool," or SSAT, which assesses reps in 25 different aspects of selling clustered into these five areas:

Open – building trust and credibility; understanding who the buyers is, and knowing what to do in the first three minutes of a client meeting.

Investigate – understanding a client’s needs, accurately assessing the situation, and figuring out what would most help the client. This is where questioning skills are evaluated.

Present – articulating the value of the product or service and linking that value to the client’s needs.

Confirm – gaining agreement for the sale, establishing next steps, and navigating decision making.

Positioning – building the relationships that lead to lifelong clients; laying the foundation for cross-selling and up-selling opportunities.

In general, reps – particularly new reps – tend to score highest in the area of "Present." It makes sense: when a new salesperson joins a company, he or she is first trained on the company’s products and services. As a result, this tends to be their area of greatest comfort and strength so they tend to rely on these skills disproportionately.

Veteran reps often turn in less than stellar results in questioning skills for quite another reason: they’ve been around for so long that they know the solution to a client’s problem within minutes of the first meeting. "They’ve seen it all; the client says three things and the more experienced rep knows the solution," says Martini. "And the kicker is they’re usually right!" But knowing the solution isn’t enough. Clients need to feel they’ve been heard. In order to buy into a solution, they need first to feel their needs have been fully and individually assessed, which can only be done by asking good questions.

The good news in all this is that questioning skills are no different from other sales skills in that they can be taught. Moreover, when you train in this area, it always translates into an improvement in other areas as well. For instance, when reps learn how to ask better questions, they build stronger relationships. And reps who ask better questions are better able to present their offerings and match their value to the specific, well researched needs of the client.

The bottom line: "If there’s one skill area to invest in next year, it’s questioning skills," concludes Martini. "If your reps master this skill, you will see movement in results."

Want to see how your reps stack up in their skills? Visit www.piworldwide.com.