When it comes to sales, there are effective questions to ask. And there are ineffective questions to ask. And unfortunately, most salespeople are asking ineffective questions. In fact, there are only really a few questions that you really must be asking. Everything else is fluff. It’s not useful. In this chapter, I’m going to show you three of those closing questions you must be asking to close more sales. Check it out.
Number one, what’s this challenge cost you, now when you ask this question in the context of a selling situation, I want you to imagine that you’ve already been discussing with the prospect some of the challenges that they’re facing, challenges that you specifically deal with. And by then asking a question like this, that sounds something like George, what would you say this challenge costs you? When you get that answer, which by the way, if you ask it, right, and the tone copying the tone that I just used, you’re almost always going to get a response. When you get that number, you have now created value for your solution. And once you have value, you have context by which a prospect can then compare the cost of your product or service. So if they say, well, you know what these challenges, I would say, are costing me $3 million. If your solution is, let’s say $300,000. That makes a lot of sense because $300,000 to solve a $3 million problem is a no brainer, right? I mean, if they really believe that your solution can solve that $3 million problem with a $300,000 solution it makes sense. So by asking what this challenge costs, you, your prospects are going to start to see value by having context around a buying decision.
Number two, what could you see investing to solve that challenge? Now, you’ll notice that this builds on the last question, you have first allowed them to provide some real context around that decision. And now that there’s context, you ask a question like George, what could you see investing to solve this challenge? Remember, they said that the challenge was, let’s say $3 million, you’re allowing them to come up with some kind of a budget, letting them set the bar is going to be really powerful, and ultimately closing sales? Because by doing this, by asking this really powerful, and quite frankly, very simple question, you can then create a solution accordingly. And if they say, you know what I could see investing $100,000. And let’s say your solution is twice that, its $200,000, you can then deal with that at that moment. So that way, you don’t have to go back and put together a whole proposal, you deal with that issue up front. And if by the way, if your solution is less than the budget that they’ve put together, great. Even better, by asking that budget, that simple, but powerful budget question, you’re going to be closing a lot more sales. Number three, what’s your typical decision-making process for something of this nature? By asking a question that pertains to your prospects decision-making process, you’re going to gain insight that few salespeople actually have, and that is around whether they intend to make a decision in the near future, whether there are other decision makers involved. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever been in a selling situation? And it seemed like everything was going well until the very end after you’ve presented? And they say, well, you know what, actually, I really need to run this by someone and you didn’t even know that this person existed. This was caused because we did not understand their decision-making process. You want to know your prospects decision-making process before you ever get into presenting your solutions. In fact, one of my biggest rules with all of my clients and customers is never present before you know their decision-making process ever, never present before you know, their decision making process. And a simple question like, you know, George, what would you say is your typical decision-making process for this type of project, by asking a question like that you are going to gain so much insight into where you really are in the sales process.