ever feel like your prospects are shutting you down before you even get a chance to start or they cut you off rush you along or out just say hey just show me what you got or what's the price within the first few moments of the call it's frustrating right if that sounds familiar I'm here to change things for you today I'm going to give you four tested brain triggering questions that not only keep your prospect engaged but help build real trust from the GetGo hey I'm Marcus Shan founder of vley consulting which we train coach
Tech sales and bdb sales like you to blow sales Target to become leite sales you dreamed of now early on I made a lot of mistakes on my sales calls that would lead to prospect who not trust me and ultimately ghost me or I lose the deal but the worst part I didn't even realize I was making these mistakes so today I'm going help you avoid these exact mistakes from what to say to how to actually say it if you say it to the end you Le the exact frame I use to get even the
toughest process to open up let's dive in all right these questions are part of what's called Sim C IIM the cognitive influence model which is a framework designed to influence decision-making by harmonizing emotional appeal and logical reasoning we want to start off with a series of sim questions designed to instantly establish a bond making process open up instead of actually shutting down now you might be asking why does this matter the research shows that in the first 7 to 12 seconds of a conversation your prospect brain has already started assessing whether they trust you or
whether they should put up a barrier or not now I want you to think about this imagine imagine you're having din with your family and someone knocks on your door now assuming you don't have ring or video camera so you go and you open the door and within seconds you are gauging that person you're reacting to everything from their tone to their body language to how they dress and ultimately deciding how open you feel about moving forward to engage your prosect are no different than the first call especially if you booked it cold outbound so
how can you shift their brain from defense mode to curiosity a Comm step in sales is coming in too strong acting overly excited or talk about to Pro too early this actually creates tension for the prospect it can cause a defensive fight or flight response closing them off before you even had a real CH to type a conversation with them instead focus on a tone that's calm and neutral think of it as less selling and more Discovery when you start from a place of curiosity rather than eagerness the prospect senses that they're in a safe
place to open up that neutrality alone can transform your conversation it's not just the words you say but how you say them that can make or break that initial connection so let's go through some examples let's say you booked a cold outbound lead with an exact like a CTO Chief technology officer the call can start off something like this hey Kim so there is a lot I want to learn about Alpha AI but I was one who reached out last week and my assumption is that you'd rather sh about what we do before I pass
it over to you is that right now 99.9% of the time especially cold Alpha and PR they're going to say yeah that sounds good cuz they're used to reps getting on grilling them or going to Long pitch so let's continue so here's what I recommend let's spend a few minutes walking through the typical challenges we saw for CTO in the AI space I can also share what I'm hearing the indry market as a whole then I'll pass it over to you we can discuss what resonate and what challenge are going on in your world if
there's alignment we can discuss next steps at the end is that fair now notice the calm neutral delivery it's tailored to the prospects needs not yours now as long as you nail deliver a powerful point of view or sharing Market insights that resonate you can also in questions like hey how is this shown up in your world as part of the conversation this positioning shows them that you understand their world it makes the interaction feel personal and engaging now if we switch over to inbound leads the approach adjust slightly you want to avoid really generic
small talk like how are you today or talking about the weather for 5 minutes because prospects know this doesn't actually mean you're interested or really even care they know it's just small talk so instead try hey Kim it's good to meet you mindly discuss the agenda they're going to say yes well what I like to do today is just do a deep di of your situation if it makes sense I'll do a quick demo with you if we're both feeling the line we can lock in next steps for more indepth mind Solutions engineer and if
I don't believe it's a good fit I'll tell you straight out and I'll refer you elsewhere if I can is that fair now then after they agree you can follow up with so I'm curious what sparked you to reach out to begin with this is really powerful because it shows respect for their time and zeros in on their goals without sound like a rehearse pitch now another reason is powerful is because you are setting a status frame very early in the call this means frame the conversation around exploration rather than assumption by keeping a low
pressure conversational this helps you avoid create any urgency resistance right off the bat it's just a discussion no strings attack this is huge in helping your proect feel comfortable and valued and you'll notice that once you get into the rhythm of these Sim questions Pro start to open up naturally like when you say neutral and curious you actually trigger a reaction in the Pro's brain that makes them want to share more now let's look at some more specific examples you can use the outbound and inbound leads alike so for an outbound lead if I use
the same example as before after the insights and conversation regarding that we can open with so that being said Kim what are the specific challenges you're facing with your engineering team that would absolutely derail you or you'd majorly regret if you did solve them 6 to 12 months out this simple question centers a conversation around them making them feel less like a pitch and more like a discussion that they control but on top of that it's helping them focus on the biggest and highest priority problems that will have the cost of action tied to it
more than likely for inbound leads ask the initial question about what sparked them to reach out and if it's not clear about the exact problems they have you can ask so Kim with that being said what would you say right now is your biggest challenge or what's now work to level feel like it could be or should be now again this approach quickly clarifies their intentions and build rapport now it's also very important are your nonverbal cues even if they can't see you like on a phone call your tone your energy even the subtle gestures
can influence how they perceive you imagine visualizing the gap between where your prospect is now and where they want to be this can change your tone to be warmer more genuine and ultimately more engaging if you're on Zoom more in person hand gestures and facial expressions only add to this connection when they feel understood they're more willing to engage fully and as a conversation flows you can gradually introduce the idea of working together without pressuring them for instance you can try saying hey towards the end if it seems like this might align with what you're
looking for we could talk about some potential next steps so when you phrase it this way it leads them in control which lowers defenses and makes the interaction feel really really safe when your tone and question of God genuine curiosity it puts their mind at ease you're removing barriers communication making the just semi more info responses far less likely instead they're becoming more open and ready to say yes without feeling pushed so there you have it four sim-based questions that bring prospects in keep the conversation meaningful and establish trust regardless of the industry you sell
into these questions are super effective and helping your proect feel genuinely heard and appreciated now now if you want our help to help you improve your sales results head a call with my team below see if it's good fit for our coaching programs if you want to learn how to create massive urgency for your deals to close faster I'll see you this next video right here
