We all here in today selling world that we need to be asking the right questions to understand a potential clients needs but what a lot of people extract from that idea is to just bombard prospects with random questions here and there like we're magically somebody going to understand their exact needs or their exact challenges. But the reality is that we need to have an exact process of the questions that were asking from beginning to end that are taking someone through. A series of thought out questions at different stages of the conversation that will ultimately unveil a prospects needs and so in this video, I'm going to show you five sales questions to ask a potential client to determine their needs check it out.
Number one tell me more about that challenge really really simple question. I'm going to assume that you've already engaged the prospect in some kind of. Conversation about their challenges or their concerns or their needs and so what we want to do is think of it like an onion right?
You have the outer layer the outer skin which is which is rough and it's not even really edible and it's not doing anything for you. What you want to do is go so much deeper than that outer layer you want to get to the inside and so you want to start to think almost like a psychologist the initial thing that someone says is almost meaningless. What matters is what comes.
Sure, because let's think about the alternative what most sales people do when they're presented with a challenge or a need someone says yeah, you know, I'm really concerned about this and then the sales person responds with well you are in the right place. We have this incredible new feature blah blah blah instead the professional salesperson just says tell me more about that and goes deeper keep going deeper and deeper and deeper and gets to the core number two. What's a recent example.
Sample of that now this is where again we're going to start to go deeper. So they've mentioned a challenge they've told you a little bit more about that. And now what we want to do is take it from academic to reality prospects will talk about challenges and and there they really are academic in nature because it's like oh, yeah, you know we have this Challenge on that challenge, but what you really want is to make it real and so that's we're asking about an example of that challenge.
In fact a recent example of that challenge is going to make this so much more powerful if it's a. How is that the really facing there should be a recent example of what's going on. And so once they give you an example, it's amazing how it just flips a switch in my world.
I'm asking my prospects about their sales challenges, right? And so they like oh, yeah, you know our sales people they're not closing at the rate that we'd hoped for and then I say, so, can you give me a recent example of that and then they say, oh, yeah. Well, let me tell you what happened the other day and now we're going into what really matters and they're feeling.
You can start to translate the challenges that your prospects are bringing to you translate that into Dollars. Then that's where you're literally getting them to tell you the value of the problem. That's where they're getting the actual value of the solution.
And so now we always hear the idea of oh, you know, you've got to be selling on value. What does that really mean? It means asking questions like this that help get the prospect to actually articulate what the prospect actually is dealing with and what that actually translates to in dollars.
Now, I already know in the comment section people who are selling to Consumers alike with consumers. They don't deal with this dollars dollars dollars that make sense for corporate absolutely not consumers any human being can translate most problems into dollars. And by the way if there is truly no dollar.
You on the challenges that you solve and it's only in a couple of examples. You can still ask a question. Like if you could solve this what would it mean to you or if you're able to solve this?
What would it mean big picture? And so now you're getting them to really think like wow if I were actually able to solve this, what would that really mean? And of course if you were selling in the B2B space or in most consumer examples you want to be getting a number and dollars.
This is where things completely change and I you can use my office. Example of when I'm talking to a prospect and they're talking about their team's challenge that I say look if you were able to solve this challenge, what would it mean in dollars and suddenly, that's why they come back with well, if we're able to solve that. I mean that's at least five million dollars in additional sales that we could be achieving.
He just had five million dollars, right? That's where we're starting to really get to the value. And that's also in their head.
They're planting the seed for themself the value of working with someone like me. Or in your case the value of working with you number four. Why is this an issue right now?
This is really important because so often is this and even just human life is about doing triage, right? It's like the Doctor Who's at a hospital with more patience than they have hospital beds and so everyone. In their lives and in their businesses are always trying to solve more problems than they really have hospital beds to really fix.
And so this is why you want to ask a question about the relevancy right now because sometimes people will talk about their challenges, but then they're like, yeah, you know, we're really more focused on solving that in Q4 or you know, we'd really. It's important to us. But I think I've got a couple of other issues that are more important and I want to come back to this one down the road and on the other hand if it's really important to them.
They're going to be like, yeah, we if we do not solve this challenge in the next three months we're going out of business or if we don't deal with this our lives are going to be chaos getting someone to really help articulate for you and to themselves why this is important right now is Sookie know that we're not getting them to tell you why. Being with you is so important right now. That's a that's a salesy kind of an approach instead.
You're getting them to think about solving the challenge that they mentioned but at the same time it's also reinforcing in their head. Yeah. This is really important to solve and oh, by the way, I'm talking to this person who's asked me some really powerful questions to get me to actually articulate why I care about this really powerful stuff.
You're creating that relationship you're creating that trust and ultimately you. I'm the obvious choice for who to work with number five. How is this affecting you directly?
This is a really important question because so often challenges are focused again on this kind of academic setting where it's affecting the organization. Let's say you saw the operational issues for organizations, and they're talking about their operational challenges in this and that. And it's all about the organization's what everyone else put them and until we start to understand how this issue is affecting them directly.
It's really not targeting in why this person is ultimately going to make a buying decision one way or the other because ultimately the data shows that all buying decisions ultimately are made based on. And then we use the data and The Logical features and benefits to justify that emotional decision. But ultimately it's got to be affecting them personally.
So you want to be asking just a simple question with some really solid tonality something like hey, so I really appreciate what you've told me so far. How would you tell me that this is affecting you directly and now they're just go into it and start to tell you how to actually affecting them and it. Crazy how when you really get into this if you've got them with you now, they're telling you how it's going to affect their job.
If they don't solve this the organization is in trouble, right all of these different things or even if it's in a consumer example, right? How is this affecting you directly? Hey, if we don't solve these issues, I'm really in trouble getting to that level and going deeper and deeper again getting to that core of the onion and ultimately the core of the onion is what does the prospect care about most?
And the answer of course is themselves bonus question. Number one. Why do you say that now?
I've already given you the five questions, but I want to give you two other really useful questions that you can use to even go deeper. So often even when people are using this process people who are in my Academy and they're they're using the process. They still don't really get to the center of the onion.
They don't get to the center of the core of the problem and that's because they're not taking the conversation deep. So when a prospect says something that kind of flips a switch you just simply ask. Why do you say that or if they say something to you?
That doesn't entirely make sense. Just ask the question. Why do you say that or help me understand why you said that and now they're going to go even deeper even deeper to the center and now you're going to get more and more into understanding exactly what they care about.
So I'll give you an example. Let's say someone says something. Little bit vague right there like oh, yeah, you know if we don't solve this things are gonna get crazy around here.
And so you respond with crazy help me understand. Why do you say that and now they're like, oh well because of this and that and now you're going deeper and deeper again getting to what they really ultimately care about bonus question number to unpack that for me. So this isn't really a question right?
It's a statement another way of getting deeper into what they really care about. So again unpack that for me is one of my new favorite. Since that I'm using actually learned this from a salesperson when I was working with and they said, you know, I use the phrase unpack that for me and it's just a really disarming way to get a prospect to go deeper in what they just said.
So again, you know Prospect says hey, you know, we're really concerned about our marketing challenges right now and in particular our cost-per-click really isn't where we want it to be and all your responses. Hmm. Unpack that for me and now they go deeper and deeper.
It's amazing how much you can really get from someone just by when they tell you something that you don't fully understand. You just say something like hey unpack that for me and now they go deeper, they literally unpack their luggage and they show you all the baggage on the inside using these questions take some practice but keep going deeper don't accept what people say on face value go to the core of what they ultimately. They care about so there are the five sales questions to ask a potential client to determine their needs and if you enjoyed this video then I have an awesome free training on the data-driven approach to help you crush your sales goals.
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