I found an interesting tidbit in a recent HBR article titled The Surprising Power of Questions. This article looked at the power and value of asking strategic questions in business. One area they shared insight on is sales — a key driver of business success.
Here’s what they found (from a sample of 500,000 sales calls):
-
Top-performing sales people ask questions different that their peers
-
Data shows a strong connection between the number of questions a salesperson asks and his or her sales conversion rate (in terms of both securing the next meeting and eventually closing the deal)
-
Top-performing sales people tend to scatter their questions throughout a sales call, which makes it feel more like a conversation than an interrogation
-
Lower-performers, in contrast, frontload questions in the first half of the sales call, as if they’re making their way through a to-do list
-
Top sales people listen more and speak less than their counterparts overall
-
When sellers ask questions rather than just make their pitch, they close more deals
Here’s where the application for fundraising comes in. I know, “fundraising is NOT sales” — I’m sure I’ll hear that from a fundraiser somewhere (or maybe a dozen). Thing is, the process of building relationships, identifying interests, and negotiating a gift commitment is VERY similar to a strategic selling process.
One of the biggest reasons major gift officers fail is that they spend more time TELLING than they do ASKING. And I’m not just talking about the final ask (i.e., asking for the gift). Generally speaking, when development officers do more talking than listening, donors get turned off. They either don’t give, or the gifts they give are markedly smaller than what they could potentially have given.
As fundraisers and nonprofit leaders, we should be studying what brings success in strategic sales processes, learning from it, and adapting it for our own purposes. Because the more effective and efficient we can become at relationship development and strategic donor engagement, the greater impact we can have for our causes.