A salesperson wanted to improve their discovery skills and asked me to coach them. To bring me up to speed and show me what was happening in their sales presentations we watched their last Zoom meeting.
It went well, they gained control of the meeting with a good agenda, built rapport, asked great questions, and got the prospect to share a bunch of information.
The only negative; their follow-up questions were not very effective. When they asked a follow-up question using words the prospect said the conversation went in the wrong direction.
For example, when the client said "We have a problem because we are shipping product before it passes quality."
The salesperson asked, "Why are you shipping product before it has passed quality" not a bad question, but the why came across as judgmental and the client got defensive which stalled the conversation and made it less productive. This scenario repeated itself a bunch so I suggested mirroring instead of asking.
When you mirror you just repeat two or three of the client's words instead of asking a question.
It is really a parroting of what the client said.
Next time the salesperson would just repeat, "Before it passes quality?" and let the words hang in the air. The prospect would naturally take that cue and say more on the subject.
The benefits to mirroring are:
You won't have to create questions on the fly
You can use the client's words so they'll instinctively feel more comfortable
Your questions will not come with any opinion and you will be seen as neutral.
Good luck
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