Guest Post by Chris Orlob
You’d be surprised by how many major breakthroughs we take for granted today that were completely discovered by accident. From gunpowder to post-its, many discoveries happen while trying to find something entirely different.
And that’s exactly how we uncovered the single best closing question to use in sales.
Earlier this year, we analyzed one million sales calls with machine learning to determine if the phrase “Does that make sense?” has a positive correlation with negative sales outcomes as traditional sales logic has long-held. The data showed that using the phrase actually had little-to-no impact on close rates, but can result in a small increase in conversion rates from stage to stage.
However, while we analyzed the data, an interesting trend appeared that was more significant than the original question we sought to answer.
We discovered that that top reps— those in the top 10% of the performance rings at their company—