Tag: master sales

Your goal during discovery sales conversations is to bring prospective clients to clarity about their situation, so that they can face it and feel the urgency to change.

You accomplish that by asking them four main questions.

Last time, I shared the first two: “What are you looking to accomplish?” and “What is the biggest problem in your business right now?”

Here are the other two questions:

Question 3
With the third question, you’re assessing their awareness while helping them get clear. You ask, “Why do you think you have that problem?”

Again, don’t argue with them or challenge their perception.

You’re not trying to show how wrong they are or how smart you are.

You want to draw the clarity out of them, which isn’t going to happen if you’re making them feel defensive.

You can tell them what’s wrong with their business until you’re blue in the face. But until they see it for themselves, there’s no sale.

So even if you think they’re wrong, listen to what they’re saying.

The Art of Listening
In order to listen, you have to be out of your own head.

If you have a clatter of mental noise, if you’re thinking, Is this person going to buy? or What do I say next? you’re only listening to yourself.

You want to listen to them, but even more than that, you want to really hear them. Remember, we listen with our ears, but we hear with our emotions.

If you can hear what your prospective client is saying with your own feelings, and then give that empathy back to them in the form of the fourth question, you will influence them every single time.

Question 4
When you ask the fourth question with empathy, your prospects will feel permission from you to be authentic, and to tell you the truth.

At the same time, you want to convey a tone of authority, so that they feel confident in you as well.
So energetically, you lean in, and with that compassionate yet authoritative tone, you ask:

“How badly do you want this to change?”

If you’re compassionate and they’re authentic, the question will elicit emotion. There may be tears. There may be anger. There may be excitement.

And you will know instantly if the person is ready to make the change. If they are ready to buy.

Don’t respond by, then, going into a lot of detail about your product or service. People are not buying based on what your product or service contains.

They’re buying the outcome that they finally feel is possible for them.

If you start going into the details, you’re going to destroy that urgency to change that you’ve been building over the entire conversation.

Like sticking a pin into a balloon, the urgency is gone, and you’ve lost the sale.

What you want to do is stay present with them and solidify the commitment. Begin the relationship that will enrich both of your lives.

I absolutely love sales. It totally lifts my spirit, because it is the first step to change in a person’s life.

Without the sale, nothing happens.

The prospects just sit in their prison cells, never realizing that the life they want is attainable, if they’d just shift their perspective and reach outside their bars.

Fortunately, they have you.

Clarity Brings Urgency
When you’re successful during a discovery conversation with a prospective client, you’ve brought them to clarity about their situation, which, in turn, gives them the urgency to change.

Let me say that again, with clarity comes the urgency to change.

Part of the reason that people stay stuck is they’ve pushed their problem so far into the future that they can’t see it. One day, they’ll make enough money to take vacations. One day.

The problem is, “one day” will never come. Your prospects will stay stuck until they finally realize that there is only now.

If they want to increase their income, if they want the life of their dreams, now is the time to act.

To help guide them to that clarity, which, again, they have to realize for themselves, you want to ask them four simple questions. Here are the first two:

Question 1
The first question you ask during the discovery conversation with a prospect is some version of “What are you looking to accomplish?” It’s plain, simple and direct.

You do want to tailor that question to your specific business, product or service. For example, if you’re a financial planner, it makes sense to ask, “How much money do you want to make?”

Regardless of the wording you choose, after you ask the question, be quiet. Just listen, and they will tell you what you need to know about them.

Question 2
Next, you want to ask, “What is the biggest problem in your business (or life) right now?”

With this question, you’re finding out what they want and need, but, more important, they’re beginning to get clear about their problem.

After you ask the question, again, don’t say a word. Let them tell you what they think their problem is.

If you think that they’re incorrect about the nature of their problem, don’t tell them that or argue with them, because that does no good.

In fact, almost everyone’s answers to one or more of these questions will be wrong. That doesn’t matter.

What matters is that they’re starting to get clear in their minds that they have a problem, and they’re bringing that problem from some nebulous future into the present, where they can finally face it.

Look at it this way, if you have to tell them what their problem is, they haven’t accepted it yet in their mind.

And if they haven’t accepted it yet, if they’re saying, “I want to think about it” they still have unanswered questions. And, if that’s the case, there’s no way they’re moving forward.

In order to bring them to clarity and urgency and clinch the sale, you need to ask them two more questions. You’ll find those here next time.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost
program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost
program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.