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Questions in selling are truth-seeking missiles. JERRY ACUFF – sales and marketing author
Sales expert and “questions guru” Paul Cherry and leadership expert Patrick Connor have teamed up to take on the challenges of management and team accomplishments. According to Paul and Patrick, to get improved, sustained sales team performance, you need to ask the right questions.
QUESTIONS THAT GET RESULTS: Innovative Ideas Managers Can Use to Improve Their Teams’ Performance is an innovative, powerful resource that provides managers with smart, intuitive, thought-provoking questions that lead to real answers for:
Sometimes a title can be a bit misleading and here is a great example. Don’t get me wrong, this is in no way a criticism of the book…but really when I walked away and it was all absorbed I realized that the question is just the external manifestation of the leadership skill of listening, but really listening, and then looking to better understand.
The book has as much to do with mentoring, creative thinking, inspirational leadership and thinking outside the square as it does with questioning. Perhaps the real gem from Paul Cherry is that that the question needs to be appropriately matched to the information received. Removing the closed ended questions, finding the crack that seems to open up the root cause and knowing when the band aid has been plastered over the wound in the hope that it hides the sores of the issues.
Ultimately this is a great guide to thinking, listening, probing and then thinking again. Akin to any growth cycle this book teach leaders to take their time, listen to everything that is being communicated and then have a relentless drive for the truth.
Highly recommended as a core foundation for all leaders in any business.
BY TOM
QUESTIONS THAT GET RESULTS surprised me. I thought I was pretty good at asking questions and listening. After reading this book, I have a whole new view of the role of questions. The idea that questions are a great way to lead was one I had heard often, yet this book makes that concept real. The types of questions Paul Cherry and Patrick Connor describe–with examples and stories–build collaborative relationships, and both the questioner and the person questioned learn and benefit. The book is a great reminder to me that when I think I know what is going on for another person is when it is often most important to ask, and it gives me ways of doing that in a neutral fashion that bypasses my assumptions and actually gets results. I expect to read this book more than once.
BY SHEELLA MIERSON
I met Paul Cherry when he presented at our national sales meeting. He was phenomenal and this is the BEST sales training/information I have ever experienced. Learning the “art” of how to ask questions has transformed the way I conduct my sales calls and has helped me to close deals much sooner. Most importantly, his techniques are EASY TO LEARN and apply to your everyday calls!!!! Implementing this info will catapult anyone from being a good salesperson to a top performer. I wish I had come across this sooner it takes all the guess work out and get answers/results sooner. Questions That Get Results: Innovative Ideas Managers Can Use to Improve Their Teams’ Performance
BY ANNA PRICE
There are a lot of books on communications, leadership and coaching. But this is the only one I know of that gives you the know-how on why asking great questions is so important as a manager or leader. If you want to motivate an employee, you only get so far telling them what to do. The ability to motivate is all about getting into your employees’ heads, to understand what really makes them tick and why. You can’t do that without asking great questions. The key is knowing what questions to ask, when and how.
The book also gets into the power of listening for key words, how to interpret what someone is really saying or thinking. The concepts are practical on how to decipher when someone is being sincere, committed or just trying to put you off but is afraid or aloof to tell you. Questions that Gets Results gives you the roadmap on how to probe, connect and understand your team to build powerful relationships.
I really like the chapter on how to manage those internal folks who don’t report directly to you. The book does a great job on the need to engage counterparts to be accountable and pro-active with great engaging questions. The other chapter on how to engage C level executives is a home run for me. I need to work on how to have that strategic discussions with the senior executive team so I’m on their wavelength. I’m already reading it a second time. The last chapter on how to engage your kids really jolted me because I could be doing a better job with my teenagers. Awesome book and fun to read.
BY ROB PHILLIPSON "SALES MAVEN"
(CALIFORNIA)
Occasionally, we’ve asked appropriate questions to unclog a team stalemate, but this book fills our toolbox with hundreds of savvy questions, discussion-engendering questions, and questions make the title of the book true. Even better is that these questions, set within the team context, can be adapted and applied to a vast array of contexts–business teams, educators and administrators, and religious leaders who want to develop greater team ownership and pride and effective results.
The book pushes past the usual employee/supervisor protocol to practical, why didn’t I think of that wisdom. The book’s use of the humble interrogatory approach perks up sagging interest, shifts the focus, and leads to more engaging team interaction.
What a great book to manage not just a team, but to forge a winning team, or in the words of William Bennis, a “great team.”
Thanks, Cherry and Connor for a very useful tool that works everywhere and anywhere people gather to accomplish goals.
BY BOOKPACKER
If you want your business to succeed, you must remember that your team members are people, too. With sales/leadership experts Paul Cherry & Patrick Connor’s new book QUESTIONS THAT GET RESULTS (QTGR), they do for leadership questions what Cherry did for sales questions in his 2006 bestseller QUESTIONS THAT SELL. Cherry and Connor have their collective finger on the pulse of what makes people and businesses strong and healthy. They know that when you ask your employees the right questions to find out what they really want and need, the answers you’ll get will benefit the manager and his/her entire team in the long run. The managers and issues in QTGR are very relatable, and their stories are told with wit and verve. If you’re serious about helping your team be the best that it can be while doing so with a positive outlook, compassion, and camaraderie, QTGR will become your office bible!
BY DORIAN TENORE-BARTILUCCI
(WHITEHALL, PA USA)
