Empower Your Sales Team to Close More Sales in Australia

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When it comes to sales, we all get in today's world that we should be asking questions of our prospects. But when I really get into the weeds with most salespeople and I say, "What types of questions are you asking?" I so often find that the types of questions that most people are asking are actually moving the sales conversation backwards and not forwards. So in this video, I'm going to show you 17 super-quick sales questions to close more deals. Check it out. (light music) Number one, "Tell me more." I love the simplicity of this question. And in fact, it's not even technically a question. A lot of these actually you'll find don't have a question mark, but they still prompt the prospect to go deeper. The goal here a lot of these questions is to really think like a doctor to get the prospect to really identify what is the core issue. When the prospect tells you something that seems potentially important or is maybe unclear, rather than just agreeing with them and saying, "Oh yeah, we hear that all the time," instead say, "Huh, tell me more about that." Now you're going to get them to really dig in. Number two, "Why is that?" Again, going so much deeper. We're going to understand our prospects better than their spouse does. The more you can understand them, the more they're going to think that you are the solution to really solve their problem. A question like, "Why is that?" allows you to really draw them out and to really start to thing about, how could they potentially see a solution to this potential concern? Number three, "Unpack that." Again, in the vein of going deeper, now we're getting them to really dig into a particular topic. Someone says something like, "Oh yeah, you know, things have been really crazy this year with the economy." You say, "Oh, unpack that for me." Now you're getting them to really go deeper and to actually explain what is actually crazy about this particular year. Is it that it's crazy good or crazy bad or crazy somewhere in between? We want to really understand exactly precisely what they're trying to say. Number four, "Why?" Now, of course, we wouldn't ask it like that, but asking a question like, "Why?" or "Why is that?" or "Why do you think that is?" or "Why?" When you ask it with the right tonality, what you're doing is you're getting them to really think through, what's actually going on? Why is that? It actually shows expertise to ask a question like why at the right time. A lot of times salespeople think, "Oh, well if I say why, then it's saying basically I don't understand, I don't get it." But that's right, you don't understand their exact situation. Prospects are like snowflakes. Every single situation's a little bit different and we want them to identify why. Number five, "Really?" or "Really?" However you want to use the tonality in whatever situation, but by again using the question like that, you're allowing them to explain what's going on. You're prompting them to just continue and go deeper. Again, getting them to do more talking. Number six, "What makes you say that?" Now, this is a beautiful question for a lot of different uses. But basically, if a prospect asks you a question or says something that's unclear, when you say something like, "Well, what makes you say that?" now you're getting them to really explain what's going on in their head. There's always two layers of consciousness. There's what they actually say and then there's what the thinking in their brain that caused them to say that. Really powerful distinction. Number seven, "Why do you think that is?" Now, again, I think I actually mentioned this one before in some ways, but we want to really understand why they think something is the way it is. What we think is not important. It's all about what did they think. Number eight, "What have you done to fix that?" Now, this is where we're kind of shifting gears here in the types of questions and now we're getting them to explain, well, if they have a challenge or something that's been going wrong, what have they done to try to fix that so far? And if they haven't done anything, that's going to tell you something about whether it's really a priority. And if they've done 30 different things and none of it's worked, now you've got a prospect that you know is probably pretty committed to trying to fix this. So understanding what they've tried to so in the past to fix that is going to really help you understand where they are and really create value in terms of what your potential solution could look like. Number nine, "How's this affect you?" I love this question so much because now we're shifting gears from academic to personal. This is where things go from theoretical to really meaningful because every prospect is affected by whatever challenges that they want to talk to you about, ultimately. And by the way, if they're not personally affected by it, it's probably not a priority. So, "How does this affect you?" is a great question because it's going to gauge how important it is to them. I mean, this doesn't, you don't have to find out the most personal details of their life, but you do want to understand how is this issue affecting them. And tonality really matters with this. If you just say, "Well, how's this affect you?" now they're going to react to that. But if you say, "Huh, how's this affect you?" now you're getting them to really open up. Number 10, "What have you done to solve this?" Now, it's just another spin on one of the earlier questions, but I love the simplicity of it. And it's basically, again, getting the prospect to tell you where they are in the process of solution here. Really powerful. Number 11, "What's your top priority?" I love this question because now what it's doing is it's forcing the prospect to think through, well, what is their top priority? Not, "what are your priorities?" It's, "What your top priority?" Again, you're not going to use this question every single time, with every single prospect, but when a prospect is a little unclear on what their challenge is or what they're looking to accomplish, by getting them to really clarify what their top priority is, it allows you to really be the expert, almost like the consultant, to really help them determine, "Okay, this is the thing that I most want to fix." Number 12, "Do you have your calendar on you?" This is one of my favorite questions. I use this all the time with prospects. Particularly as it pertains to scheduling next steps. Because one of the beautiful things about it is that in today's world, every prospect has their calendar on them. They have their cell phone, they have their computer. Of course they have their calendar on them. But what it's doing is prompting them to basically say yes and now you can use that to schedule your next step. Because you always want to have that next step scheduled with a calendar invite, and you want to make sure it's at a time and date that's going to work for both of you. So a question like, "Do you have your calendar on you?" now is prompting a really strong next step. Number 13, "Does this all make sense so far?" I love this question, particularly at a point in the sales conversation where you're doing more presenting. So if you're presenting your offering, we don't want to be just doing one long monologue. What we want to do is you're going to present something that your offering does and then it's like, "Okay, so does this all make sense so far?" And what they're typically going to do is nod and be like, "Yes," or if they say, "No," you also want to know that. If you ask this in the right way, what you're doing is you're basically taking their temperature along the way and you're getting feedback. And you're making it a two-way conversation. Number 14, "Do you see what I mean by that?" Again, in the same vein, but a different way of asking. We call these feedback loops in the Sales Insights Method, where now you're presenting a particular piece and you say, "Okay, so this is what we're going to do in this situation. Do you see what I mean by that?" And they're going to, again, they're going to be prompted to say yes, and they might give you some feedback, which is really valuable. The more you get your prospects talking during your presentations, the more effective and likely you are to actually close those presentations. Number 15, "How do you typically make decisions like this?" This is one of my favorite decision questions. Because it's not saying, "Are you the decision maker?" and it's not saying, "What's your decision-making process?" It's more just kind of like a nice gentle way of understanding how they would typically make a decision like this. You're going to understand now more about who's involved, how they typically do it. It's a really, really powerful and simple decision question that's going to help them also clarify what their process is going to be. Number 16, "What's a realistic timeframe for this?" Now what you're doing is you're combining decision-making with priority to really understand basically, what, from their perspective, is the timeframe that they're looking for. It may be faster than you expect it or it may be slower than you expect it or it may be just in alignment with where you want to be. Or maybe they're just open. But by doing this, what you're doing is you're avoiding presenting an option that's going to be not to their liking. Because if they want to move really quickly and you offer something really slow, that's not good. And if they want something that's maybe in a couple months from now, but you're offering something to close tomorrow, that's probably not useful either. So we want to make sure we're finding out from them what their timeframe is. Number 17, "What would you like to do next?" This is one of my favorite closing questions in the entire world. Because what it's doing is, if you've taken them through the process of asking the right questions and demonstrating real insight and determining that you can solve, there's not going to be as much pushback as you might normally get. So by just saying something like, "Well, what would you like to do next?" now you're giving them the opportunity to basically lay out, okay, what are the next steps? By doing this, it takes all of the pressure out of the sale and it allows them to feel like they're in control, but really, you have created this essentially a train on train tracks that's just moving in one direction. What we want to avoid is this bumper cars of prospects bouncing all around. But by using this process and asking a closing question like, "What would you like to do next?" now forward is really the only direction. So there are 17 super-quick sales questions to close more deals. And if you enjoyed this video, then I have an amazing free training on the step-by-step formula to closing more deals. Just click right here to get registered instantly. Seriously, just click right there. This is an in-depth training that will help you close more deals at higher prices, all while generating more meetings. Also, if you got some value, please like this video below on YouTube and be sure to subscribe by clicking my face, which should be right about here, to get access to a new video just like this one each week.