How do you get your prospects to reveal more emotion and expand their answers?
Mark Lack, a self-made millionaire, shares key insights that can help you close more sales and reach more people with your products and services.
The secret is asking “expanded probing questions.” Prospects make buying decisions based on emotion and then justify those decisions with logic.
What Are Expanded Probing Questions?
Expanded Probing questions should begin with phrases like these:
- Walk me through …
- Tell me more …
- Can you share it with me …
- Describe for me …
- Explain to me …
These questions show your prospects that you are there for them. You want to hear their pain. Not only do you want to hear it, but you want them to hear it as well. You want them to relive the experience of the pain they associate with not having the problem resolved yet.
So, what is the most intense emotion? It’s PAIN! Without pain, there is no sale. Without you pulling out the pain from the prospect with powerful questions, your potential customers will continue to live with that pain, doing what they’ve always done, maintaining the status quo.
Unless you learn how to uncover a prospect’s pain with great questions, you’ll keep selling using traditional techniques, playing the numbers game, and losing sales you could be making.
Examples
- Can you walk me through your company’s decision-making process?
- Can you give me a specific example so I can understand this better?
- Can you go over with me the qualities you look for when choosing a company to work with?
- Walk me through the criteria you use to make a decision on something like this.
- Describe for me what you’re possibly looking for, just to see if I could help you.
- Explain that to me in more detail, just so I understand… And did that work?
- How did you feel about that? In what way though?
What Are Solution Awareness Questions?
Solution awareness questions can help the prospect become open about your competitors, who are also marketing to your clients. Once you learn more about how your competitors are positioned and where your prospect stands with each one, it will give you a competitive advantage in your sales process.
Examples
- Could you share with me what you’re hoping to accomplish in the next 3, 6, or 12 months? How does this compare to where you are right now?
- Can you go over the qualities you are looking for in a vendor? How does that compare to what your CEO, boss, or department heads look for in a vendor?
- What differentiates your company from your competition? Why is that?
- What’s more important to your company: cutting costs or increasing sales and revenue? Why?
- Can you share your long-term goals and how they compare to where you are now? What’s prevented you from achieving them?
- What have you tried to do about this in the past? What worked? What didn’t?
- How much do you think this has cost you? In what ways?
- Have you given up trying to deal with this problem? Why is it important to address it now?
- How long has this been going on in the organization?
- How long has this been a problem?
- What’s prevented you from solving this in the past? Why now?
- How much do you think it’s costing you in lost sales each year?
- How much do you think it’s costing you in lost revenue each year?
By focusing on uncovering pain and asking the right questions, you can build stronger connections and drive more sales.
Don’t just play the numbers game – start asking questions that get results!
