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Do your customers perceive you as a valuable resource?
Establishing this early in the relationship earns you their time,
interest, and attention. However,
salespeople often ask initial questions that don't support that all-important
goal. The Titan alternative to the traditional sales interview
is:
THE ISSUES-BASED QUESTION Issues-based questions focus on finding out where the other
person is trying to go. People love
to talk about that! Issue-based
questions sound like this: "What are the three improvements you're most
interested in achieving for your organization as a result of the training
program?" Prospects are highly motivated to answer intelligent
issues-based questions. Aren’t we
all in a hurry to get to where we're not? Issues-based
questions shows your interest in their goals, demonstrating you're capable of
"being there" to turn those goals into realities.
That's Step One in positioning yourself as an invaluable resource. The responses to these questions will center on these four
elements: improved profits, improved productivity, reduced costs, and increased
competitive edge. To verify you get all the necessary information is critical
to your success ask illustrative, clarification and consequence questions.
These create a clearer vision of what your customer is facing, and the
value proposition necessary to help achieve key goals. THE ILLUSTRATIVE QUESTION The illustrative question encourages the prospect to
"paint a picture" for you. It's
a request for an expansion on a recently raised topic. If you are selling retirement investments funds, the
illustrative question might be: "Please describe a typical day in your
ideal retirement scenario.” You're encouraging the prospect to illustrate the "big
idea" he or she is talking about. The
clearer that picture is for you, the better off you both are. THE CLARIFICATION QUESTION With the clarification question, you're asking the customer
to provide workable, in-depth definitions of a specific phrase that's important
to him or her: "How would you define quality in your terms? One person's definition of a word like "quality" could be very different than somebody else's. When people use words, they aren't thinking about the dictionary definitions of the words. They are drawing on their biases and experiences. If someone says, "I need quality," and you answer
"Okay, let me show you how we can give you quality," there's a
problem. You're offering a solution
with out knowing what the other person is talking about.
Instead ask a clarification question - “When you say ‘quality,’
what does that word mean to you?” THE CONSEQUENCE QUESTION The consequence question sets you up for the value
proposition. It's the key question
for introducing positive change. The consequence question highlights the consequence of your
prospect's doing nothing and ignoring the resources you offer.
If there are no consequences to doing nothing and staying with the status
quo -- why would anyone change? The more compelling the consequences you build up, the
easier to demonstrate that the cost of staying is going to be greater than the
cost of the change you're identifying. If
you can ask consequence questions that "hit 'em where they live"- you
will get the business! Consequence questions can’t stand alone.
They certainly can't be the first questions you ask a prospect or
customer. They have to be preceded
by the other questions. Whether you
as a clarification, illustration, or consequence questions depends on the
situation, the concerns of the other person, and your sense of how the sales
interview is unfolding. Here is example of effective consequence question: What will happen if you do not find a way to reduce your
customer hold time from 24 minutes to 2 minutes? "Mr. Customer, what's really at issue here, cutting
your costs by 17% or saving as much money as possible?
By working with us at our current pricing and utilizing all of our
services including our national computer system, we can cut your costs
significantly more than 17%. Here are the statistics to prove it.” Practice developing issue-based, illustrative, clarification, and consequence questions. Write down each of the questions and identify them all by category. Do this to get used to this type of questioning, not to create a script. Once you have a handle on the best ways to develop questions based on your customer’s input, you'll be ready to become your customer’s business ally. |
