A customer-success leader credits a mentor named Bob with transforming how they lead conversations. After adopting Bob's challenging questions, they started asking tougher questions in high-stakes calls, listened more, and let silences sit. Gong data confirmed customers now speak more than they do.
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So I've told this story before, and I'll, I'll certainly share this again because I think it's important. The first time I asked one of the questions that Bob had listed, I chose one of the harder ones, of course. I was terrified. Um, my palms were literally sweating, and I got such amazing results from that that I've continued to ask them. I keep them on my desktop. I use them, I would probably say, 3, 4 times a week at least. Some of the other effects that these questions have had is I've learned I've been able to ask harder questions in more challenging situations. So in severely escalated situations, I feel that I'm able to ask more difficult questions. When I'm speaking with executives, I feel like I have the ability to ask more difficult questions, because time and time again, I get better results than when I do things like I used to do, which maybe feels a little bit like placating. The other thing that I notice I do a heck of a lot more, and I'm very grateful for, is I hit mute. When I speak or put a question out there, my automatic response now is just to hit mute. There have been some awkward silences, and those have always led to really good results, right? I certainly talk a lot less and listen a lot more. In fact, Bob challenged me to really look at things like my Gong times to see if I was in fact letting my customers speak more than I was. And they do now. That has not always been the case. So incredibly grateful for everything that I've gotten through following Bob's stuff, as well as everything that he's taught in his classes.
