Critical Path Strategies has helped 50+ clients document their sales process.  We do this by interviewing some of our client's best folks, asking the fundamental question, "When you are at your best, what kinds of things do you do to create a mutually attractive opportunity and advance it to closure?"  We gather these best practices, synthesize our findings, refine them, and confirm them with our client.  It's a great process, and we're darned good at it.

Many a sales manager preaches ABC--Always Be Closing.  The naive might think that means keep asking for the order.

My colleague, Ken Evans, has been thinking a lot about good questions to ask during the sales process. So a post on the Fast Company blog by Neil Baron caught my eye. Baron says there is a sure-fire way to generate interest among your B2B leads. Just ask the Magic Question.

"The Magic Question is that one question you need to ask to get the prospect to say 'please tell me more,'" Baron explains. "The trick is to generate curiosity quickly."

We have a coaching engagement with one of our clients. We documented their sales process for them. They recently delivered their content/proposal to a customer. And now they're waiting...and waiting.

The phone does not ring.

What might be some good questions that they could use to create a little urgency or momentum? Here are a few I would recommend, but I could use some help from you.

• What are some key deadlines you need to meet?
• Who should we get engaged on the implementation team?
• What additional information do you need?