My writing partner in sales literature is a wonderful and talented guy, Tim Dunne. We’ve been colleagues at the CREA Conference (coming up soon, April 13-17) and also CPSI — so we’re both bona fide creativity and innovation types. We share a common history of being bag carrying salesmen.

We’ve both thought for ages that bringing applied creativity concepts to the sales world is needed — and we’re working on that.  In the meantime, check out his post today:

The When, Why and How of Credibility.

Well worth a quick read, and check back with Tim now and again for more thoughts on creative selling.

The essence of his post is simply all about how to build enough credibility with a prospect to get into a meaningful dialog.

After all, If you can’t ask questions and get honest answers, you’re not really even gotten up to the plate to bat are you?

It also has me thinking about the whole idea of asking “obvious” questions. Many times we try to short cut a discussion with a client because we think we know the answers to the basics already.  It never hurts to ask the dumb/obvious questions first.  You’ll often find that you assumed incorrectly, or, things have simply changed.

So, don’t forget to ask those dumb questions!