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Written by: Thomas Ellis | mrthomasellis.com
Recently I was working a VP of Sales who expressed to me that his sales team was having challenges closing sales. After several sessions of diagnosing the problem, I determined that most of the sales representatives were not asking the right questions in their initial meetings with prospective new clients.
Over the next several months we help them get comfortable by developing five questions that they had to ask every prospect.
1. What are your biggest challenges with regards to [salesperson’s area of focus]?
You should begin every selling conversation by trying to understand the relevant challenges a prospect is facing. So if you sell IT services, you want to understand your prospect’s challenges surrounding IT.
2. Can you give me specific examples of those challenges?
When a prospect discusses challenges in broad, abstract terms, they can seem less urgent. Challenges do not become real for the prospect until he has begun to give concrete examples from his personal business experiences.
3. What would solving these challenges mean to your top/bottom line?
This question can help you start to understand the dollar value of solving your prospect’s challenges. If improving a company’s IT infrastructure could lead to an additional $3M in sales, then that is the value that could be brought to the table with a comprehensive solution.
4. What could you see investing to accomplish that?
Salespeople are so afraid to ask for a prospect’s budget, but not doing so is a massive lost opportunity. The money conversation needs to take place before you put together a sales proposal.
5. Who else should be involved in this conversation?
Have you ever given a presentation only to find that you weren’t dealing with the true decision-maker? This happens all the time and can be easily avoided with this one simple question.