{"id":3205,"date":"2018-10-04T08:00:25","date_gmt":"2018-10-04T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/?p=3205"},"modified":"2019-04-03T10:23:23","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T14:23:23","slug":"thoughtful-thursdays-what-do-i-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/04\/thoughtful-thursdays-what-do-i-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughtful Thursdays &#8211; What do I need to know?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week&#8217;s post, <a href=\"http:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/27\/thoughtful-thursdays-what-makes-a-good-question\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">What makes a good question?<\/a> talked about asking the right questions and planning your conversation.<\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s sales thought is about what you might need to know to make the sale. Knowing what you need to know will guide you to developing good questions.<\/p>\n<p>You rarely get all the information needed in one call. It is helpful to have a list and then prioritize the importance of what you think you need to know.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a list that can be a good starting point. The items are in no particular order and come from personal experience gained over many years.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Customer Information\n<ul>\n<li>Culture<\/li>\n<li>Core values<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Current supplier(s)\n<ul>\n<li>Who<\/li>\n<li>How long have they been the supplier<\/li>\n<li>Strengths<\/li>\n<li>Weaknesses<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Current product(s) being purchased\n<ul>\n<li>Volume<\/li>\n<li>Frequency of purchase<\/li>\n<li>How much $<\/li>\n<li>Strengths of the product<\/li>\n<li>Weaknesses of the product<\/li>\n<li>Terms<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Approval process\n<ul>\n<li>What is involved<\/li>\n<li>Who is involved<\/li>\n<li>Time lines<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Stakeholders\n<ul>\n<li>Purchasing<\/li>\n<li>Approvals<\/li>\n<li>Finances<\/li>\n<li>How are stakeholders measured?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Influencers\n<ul>\n<li>Who?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Customer\u2019s customer\n<ul>\n<li>Who are they<\/li>\n<li>What are their needs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You may require less information or more depending on the products and services you are offering and the industry.<\/p>\n<p>Once you have the information needed, the situation can be analyzed. Then you can develop sales strategies and tactics that will eventually close the sale.<\/p>\n<p>Good selling,<br \/>\nRichard<\/p>\n<p>Have a question about sales? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sakanashiandassociates.com\/contact\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Contact Sakanashi and Associates Inc.<\/a> and I will respond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week&#8217;s post, What makes a good question? talked about asking the right questions and planning your conversation. Today&#8217;s sales thought is about what you might need to know to make the sale. Knowing what&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/04\/thoughtful-thursdays-what-do-i-need-to-know\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,5,3],"tags":[60,35,73],"class_list":["post-3205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sales","category-sales-tips","category-thoughtful-thursdays","tag-sales-2","tag-sales-tips-2","tag-thoughtful-thursdays"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3205"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3749,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205\/revisions\/3749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}