Are you asking the right questions during a sales appointment? Unsure what those questions are? No worries – I am going to tell you in this article.
When we enter a sales appointment we are focused on the product or service we are selling. And most of the time, when we ask questions we only ask about the situation that our offering deals with.
And that, my friends, is where we go wrong. There are 3 critical questions we should be asking, and getting the answers to.
The first one is this – What is your decision making process?
We need to know this so we can be sure we are talking to the right person or people. We don’t want to ask the person if they are the decision maker because that will make them defensive. So, if we just ask them what their decision making process is they are more likely to answer it. This lets us know what we can expect from them as we go through the sales process. And if we discover there are places in their process that could be dangerous for us, we can try to work around them.
An example would be if the person says that they gather information, give it to their boss, and their boss decides which vendor to use. We could offer to be involved in the meeting when our contact shares the information with the boss. That way we can answer any questions the boss has and our contact won’t be in the difficult position of having to try to explain our product or service.
The second question is – Do you have a budget for this?
Notice I did not ask – what is your budget? That’s intentional. Most people aren’t comfortable sharing their budget. They think the vendor will charge more if they know they have room. Asking them if they have a budget gives you some insight into how much thought they’ve given to this issue and how prepared they are to move forward. If they have a budget you can ask them if they would feel comfortable telling you what it is.
They are more forthcoming with information the more you can learn about them, their situation, and whether they really are a good prospect.
The third critical question is – What would it mean for you, or your business, to have this situation resolved?
This helps bring your prospect to a place where they can feel the solution. When they are more attached to the outcome, they will be more interested in exploring what you have to offer.
These are questions that are terribly important in the sales process. Knowing the answers to them will give you more critical information and that will help you determine whether it makes sense to continue to move forward with the prospect.
If I can be of help to you in crafting your sales process, reach out to me at seizethisday.co.
