Curiosity Killed the Cat

As we grow up we are all told that Curiosity - or rather excessive Curiosity - is not good and can lead to unwanted outcomes. The saying that you have all heard that embodies this is "Curiosity killed the cat". As a result, most of us hold back our curiosity and try not to ask a lot of questions.... well, we are losing out on a lot of learning!  And when it comes to Sales, genuine Curiosity, is extremely important.

This post will apply to Sales anywhere in the world, but even more so in the Middle East since building relationships in this part of the world is very important. You cannot close major deals or generate millions of dollars of business just based on relationships - this is a Middle East Sales Myth - but without relationships, even if you are the best Sales person out there, it will be nearly impossible for you to close any deals of significance unless you are the only provider of this solution and the customer has no choice in the matter.

I approach each interaction, every meeting and every discussion as an opportunity to learn something new. My goal for every customer meeting and for most internal meetings is to learn something new. The only way I can do that if I am genuinely curious about the person(s) in front of me, their business, their priorities, their professional career, and in some cases their personal lives.


To be effective at asking the right questions, you really do need to be Curios and obviously you need to be listening. The aim of a first meeting with a customer is to learn as much as you can about the organization, their needs and about the person in front of you. This is your opportunity to qualify in or out, but also an opportunity to build rapport and discover if your company and solutions can help this customer. And feel free to explore areas with the customer that your solutions don't fit or match since as I said, this is not about selling - yet - this is about understanding the customer and their priorities. All information is important, since the more information you have the better you will be able to be able to serve your customer's needs and the better informed you will be than your competition. I have been in hundreds of introductory meetings - first time meetings with a customer - across dozens of cities and I always look forward to those meetings since I am absolutely sure I will learn something new, information that you will never learn anywhere else - how an airline provides complimentary flight upgrades to their frequent flyer, how a car share service wants to be the preferred e-wallet for its customers and thousands of other examples.

In one of my meetings with a top exec at a large organization in the region, we ended up speaking for 50 minutes about his new Tesla! I learned so many new things about Tesla that I wasn't aware of and that you cannot learn from reading reviews or watching videos since they were small features that really made a difference. Obviously, when the discussion first started about his Tesla, I could have respectfully diverted the discussion back to my company and our solutions. However, I was extremely curious and kept asking questions. He even took out his smartphone and showed me the Tesla app and some features I wasn't aware of. Needles to say, I have built a very strong relationship with this customer and always ask him about his latest gadgets since I learn new things ever time! And yes, we closed the deal with him :)

When it comes to the art of sales, the top 1 percent of Sales people ask questions - the right questions, in the right way. Inc.com published an article that deeps dive into this topic which I urge you all to read several times and make sure your team members, colleagues, etc all read it: Top Earning Salespeople Use This 1 Easy Strategy to Outperform Everyone Else .

Once you have read the article, we can have a discussion via the comments section!