After having asked the buyer a lot of questions about their current situation and where they want to be, we know if we can help them or not.  It isn’t a given that we can.  Only we will know if we have the right solution for them.  We could provide a wrong or partial solution. The client will not however get the outcomes they need.  Yes, we grab the dough in the short term, but our business reputation will get slammed and our trust quotient out in the marketplace will be eclipsed.  We must always keep in mind that a deal is a deal, but reputation and trust are permanent assets. 

If we cannot provide the right solution, then we should tell the client we cannot help them.  There is a cadence for us to follow when presenting the solution for the client’s problem. We go through five phases: we cover the facts, benefits, the application of the benefits, provide concrete evidence and then do a trial close.

1. Facts: Salespeople often never get beyond this first level, explaining the facts, data, features and the spec associated with the solution. They get bogged down in the micro detail. Now these details are important because we have to provide the buyer with confidence that what we are saying will work.  These facts have to be provable and we need hard evidence to back them up. Often the buyer will pull us into the morass of the micro detail, because they are analytical personality types and love the numbers. However, we have to remember that the buyer is not buying the process. They are buying the outcome from the process. 

2. Benefits: Having explained the details of how the process works and the features of our solution, we need to describe the benefits. What does this feature provide in the way of results for the buyer?  What will be different and what will be better as a result of buying our solution?  A certain weight, colour, dimension, process etc., are just details.  They do not do anything by themselves, until they are linked to the outcomes the buyer is seeking.  If the details don’t deliver what the buyer needs, then we are having the wrong discussion.  The content of our description of the solution and what it will do for the client, has to line up perfectly with what they require.

3. Applications: We know that knowledge by itself isn’t as important as the application of the knowledge. So it is with applying the benefits of our solution. We need to go into detail of what the solution will mean for the buyer’s company. What things will it help eliminate, what things will it help expand, what will it improve? Again, having an inert benefit is meaningless.  What happens inside the buyer’s business when that benefit is applied to their enterprise.  This is where the “rubber meets the road”, as we say.  What will be different after we have applied our solution?  What can they

see on a daily basis that will help them to do even better than before?  This explanation process is absolutely critical. It works extremely well if we have fully understood their business, the market in which they operate and where they are in relation to their competitors.

4. Evidence: Just because a salesperson says so, doesn’t mean the buyer believes it. This is where we need to be able to refer to where this same solution has benefited a similar company, in a similar situation, in a similar industry.  The closer we can get the example we are using to the buyer’s reality, the more convincing the example becomes.  This is an important stage, as it will give the buyer more confidence that we know what we are doing, have done this before and have achieved good results.  Every company is specific, so there will always be differences with the comparison company. This is where storytelling comes in, as we bring the drama of the solution to life.  We tell the tale of what happened in our example, through the people involved.

5. Trial Close: Once we have gone through these stages, we test whether the client has understood what we have said. We try to flush out any hesitations or objections, so that we can deal with them.  It isn’t a complex step – we just ask, “how does that sound so far?” and then shut up and wait for their answer. That question is enough to find out where we are in the Sales Cycle and whether we can ask for the order.  We should never fear objections or clarifications.  We should fear the opposite.  If they don’t say anything, then start to worry.  It may be that they don’t care, because they have already deleted our solution as a possibility.  Objections, questions etc., shows interest.  This allows us to add more pinpoint proof to how our solution will help them achieve their desired outcomes.

These steps are all required and required in this order to convince the client to buy.  The conversation is unlikely to be this neatly ordered, however we must keep the discussion on track and address each of these points in this cadence to be successful and get the business.

Do you have a sales questioning model?  Is there a journey you want the buyer to complete? Do you have questions organised which will lead them along that path? Or are you all over the place, following your “muse” instead?  Surprisingly, a lot of salespeople have very little structure in their sales meetings with buyers.  Why would that be the case?  They may be untrained in sales.  They may be constantly winging it. Or they may have a partial system, because they won’t be shackled by any system and want to be a free bird, to fly in whatever direction the sales conversation goes.

This is ridiculous.  We don’t have unlimited time with the buyer and we have tons of competitors offering similar solutions.  We have to get to a quick understanding of the buyer’s needs and then come up with a solution that perfectly matches what they need. Having a plan around asking the required questions is the most efficient and effective methodology and we should all be doing that as close to “genius” levels as possible.

The questions we need to ask have a cadence, a logical order, a flow. Usually, the process never gets completed in the order we are setting out here today, simply because buyers will pull the conversation in different directions.  That is fine.  We cannot predict what the buyer will say or will ask or what segues they will pursue. That is why having a questioning model is vital. We need to keep the conversation on track, that is to say, the track of our choosing and get to a purchase result.  There are four questions in this model, none of which are complex or difficult.

As-Is Questions. 

These are aimed at establishing the base line.  What has the client been doing so far and how have the results been?  What is the situation within the organisation at the moment?  What are they doing that works and what hasn’t been working well enough?  Sometimes, the client will start telling us where they want to be.  That is fine, but we need to find out where they are so we can gauge the distance between these two points.

Should Be Questions:

Clients have goals and aims.  They might be focused on strategic or financial outcomes depending on who we are talking to, but they will have them.  They may be published in the annual report or they may be secret.  Nevertheless we need to know what they are, so we can measure against them as to whether we can help them achieve their goals or not.

At this point, we also need to ask some Implication Questions.  The point of an implication question is to cast doubt in the buyer’s mind about whether they can get to their goal by themselves or get there fast enough or get there cost effectively enough.  It is key to always include time factors with implication questions.  They may get to where they want to be, if it takes 100 years.  They usually don’t have a hundred years, so we need to draw out the downside of taking too long to get their solution working for them.

In the last episode, we looked at the buyer’s gap – the difference between where they are now and where they want to be.  If the buyer feels that gap is so close they can get there under their own resources, then we are not needed. Some implication questions could be , “if things stay the way they are, will you be able to reach your goals and targets fast enough?”, “What happens if you don’t meet your goals in the time frame needed?”,  “How big is the downside of being beaten by the competition or not being able to contend with a shift in the market?”.

The Change Questions:

The client knows where they are now and where they need to be.  The obvious question is to ask why they are not where they need to be?  This is such a critical question.  In their answer may be our rationale for being able to help them.  Maybe we have the thing they cannot do by themselves or which they cannot do fast enough. 

The Implication Question here is whether the inability to make the necessary changes will ultimately damage the business?  They know what they need to do and just delaying it is not improving the situation, because the market waits around for no one.  Taking no action is not cost free.  There are always opportunity costs of no action and we need to highlight these, because we want them to use us to fix their issues.

Payout Questions.

What is in it for this buyer personally, if the project goes well?  The company expects them to get results and they need to produce outcomes.  We need to know what those internal pressures are on the buyer.  Once we know what is at stake, we can get to work to help them achieve their goals and we can frame what we are going to achieve for them in those terms.

We can also ask the Implication Question of what happens if they are not able to produce the results the company expects?  This requires high communication skills and must be done very diplomatically.  We might ask, “In the worse case scenario, what would be the personal impact for you, if this issue cannot be fixed fast enough?”.  The point is to get them thinking we are here to help them to be successful and that we want to help them achieve their desired outcomes.

We need intelligent questions to find out if we can hep the buyer and if we can, then how should we help them.  We need their private company information to do that and questions are the tool to access that key data.  Without it, we are operating in the dark and have no idea what they need and what we need to do for them.  The result will be “no sale” and can’t have that can we!

The word shoshin or beginner’s mind in Japanese is a great metaphor for the world of sales.  When we start some activity there is a simplicity, a purity about what we are doing.  We don’t have enough information or experience to have any particular angles on what we are looking at.  We take things as they are and we have no delusions about how they should be.  We have no habits yet, because the activity is too fresh and new.  There are no habits to unwind either, because we are deep into trying to grasp what we are supposed to be doing.  We are hungry to master this activity and we are dedicating our mental and physical efforts to do so.  We are committed to getting it right.

This is a great mind set to help us improve, to polish what we are doing and to tackle new things.  In sales, we are always under pressure from numbers, boss expectations, threats of removal and financial doom.  One year can easily morph straight into the next, with a brief cessation of hostilities over the new year holidays. We were beaten down and tired over the course of the previous year and are slightly refreshed as we enter the new year.  We tend to bring all of our baggage from the previous year with us though, especially our mindset.  We just pick up where we left off and we are not elevating our chances of success in this year.

If we grasp the shoshin concept, we will take a close look at what we are doing, what we are trying to achieve and what needs to happen for us to be successful. We will begin to break down the various tasks required into their component parts and analyse our strengths and weaknesses.  We will investigate how we can build those strengths even further and look to what we need to alter to diminish our weaknesses.

Why aren’t we doing this constantly throughout the year? The answer is very simple – we are too busy running on the spot.  We are constantly chasing the numbers, trying to slam square pegs into round holes and permanently stressed.  The break at new year is a great time to reconsider how we are doing things and what things we should stop doing and which things we should start doing.  This sounds simple enough, except that we don’t do it.

Each component of the sales cycle needs to be interrogated for where we can improve.  Are we asking for enough referrals or at all?  Can we be more proactive this year?  We know we should never ask in a dumb way such as “do you know anyone….”.  This opens up the entire world to our client and they are crushed by the enormous weight of that consideration.  We need to ask about a group of faces they can see in their mind’s eye.  It might be members of the Chamber of Commerce they belong to or their golf group or their friends or associates.  If we have given good service to them as a salesperson, we have every right to ask for a referral and we shouldn’t be shy about it.  When we started in sales we had no hesitation to ask, but over the years of constant rejections and being beaten down on price by buyers, we have become constrained in our thinking.

On another front, are we following up leads fast enough? Two hours is deemed as the window of opportunity to contact a client when they enter the lead funnel.  Maybe they clicked on a search word and were directed to your website and then signed up for a newsletter or something where they gave up their contact details.  Is the internal system able to deliver their details to you within that two hour time frame and are you sufficiently motivated to drive this lead followup to the peak of your priorities?  When you got your first leads, you were a demon on speed to do the followup, you were like a rocket to get hold of that client.  Over the years you may have gotten into a lope and forgotten how to sprint hard to grab the business.  Go back to your beginner’s mindset and remember how you used to approach things.

Are you doing enough research on the company and the buyer before you contact them?  Were you an avid detective when you first started selling, trying to unearth as much information as possible on the target company before you made the call? How about now? Has complacency set in and you feel you don’t need to do that anymore, because you can wing it and you are too lazy or too busy to do the work? 

If you have been selling for a while you have seen the emergence of unbelievable engines of client search called social media.  Even if there are no annual reports available because they are not a listed company, the chances are high they will have a company website or multiple social media accounts. Before we meet the buyer, we can know so much more about them.  We are looking for connectors, commonalities to break that wall between us, so we can build the credibility and trust.  What a wonderful age in which to be a salesperson. 

Let’s re-create that shoshin, beginner’s mind for this year and get back to doing the things we know we need to be doing, but which we have let slide.  Let’s get our mindset right while our competitors drag their sorry selves into 2022 and change nothing.  We can use our shoshin to get an unfair advantage over our rivals and make this the best year possible for ourselves.

In 2022, let’s all commit to asking more intelligent questions of buyers.  For those who don’t ask questions, because they are too busy delving into the micro details of the solution, this will be a major change for the better.  How on earth can you know if the solution you are promoting is the right fit for the client’s problems, if you haven’t clearly established what the real problems are?  Rather than going through the charade of guessing what the best solution should be, we take the time to find out precisely what they need.  In Japan, if the leap straight into solution provision is because you are afraid of the buyer’s reaction to questions, then we need to work on how to get around that issue.

The answer is question design.  Just jumping into detailed questions can be an abrupt turn of events for a buyer, who is meeting the salesperson for the first time.  If some stranger started asking detailed questions about the inner workings and problems in your marriage, you would be aghast.  Keep this metaphor in mind, because this is close to what we are doing in sales.  We are trying to ask questions to find out what are the problems facing this buyer.  Probing questions about the firm’s failings may trigger an alarm in their mind about the danger of sharing confidential information with a stranger. They may become reluctant to do so, because the trust is not there yet.  Suddenly we are only getting to the tip of the iceberg issues. Even if we think we have solutions for those problems, we still are not addressing the more important hidden concerns of the buyer.

The first question we need to design is how to get permission to access very sensitive insider company information.  We need to set this up early in the sales conversation.  The 3WBigMaybe structure works well in this stage of the conversation.  The first “W” is to explain WHO we are.  For example, in my case, I would say, “we are softs skills training experts specialising in deep learning sustainment techniques, so that the training sticks”.  I have packed a lot into that short sentence, including a strong USP or Unique Selling Proposition, about the training not fading away after the classes are over.  The next “W” is WHAT we have done for a similar company in the same business and market.  We need to pick another client very similar to this one, so that they feel the success will also be relevant for them too.  The third “W” is WHEN we did it.  If the example was ten years ago or five years ago, this client may feel that so much has changed in that time, that the example is broken and not relevant. 

The BigMaybe comes immediately after the Who, What, When structure.  We haven’t asked any detailed questions yet about the client’s situation, so we actually have no idea if what we are offering will fix their issues or not.  So the next step is to be very strategic in what we say.  After having outlined what we did for another client, very similar to them, we say, “Maybe we can do the same thing for you.  I am not sure.  But in order for me to know if it is possible or not, would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”.  Clients are cautious about big talking, pushy salespeople.  By using a very soft word like “maybe’, we are signaling we are not like those other aggressive, thrusting salespeople and instead are focused on the client’s needs.

One key thing to always keep in mind though is, that once you have asked for their permission to ask questions, do not say one more word.  Let it hang there forever if necessary.  Don’t be tempted by the tension in the air to add more explanation or say any more about it.  You have been succinct and clear, so let them answer you.

This asking for permission to ask questions isn’t 100% percent guaranteed to get a “yes” and maybe the buyer forces us to go into our pitch.  That is almost guaranteed to lead nowhere and we will do it knowing that the chances of a sale are much reduced.  The percentage of clients who force this upon us though, will be very small in the big scheme of things, so we should always start with getting permission to ask questions.

Now that we have their permission to ask questions, we can investigate where they would like to be, why they haven’t gotten there already and what would success look like for them.  These are very straightforward questions, however the key is to wrap them up in the implications of not taking action right now.  Having a need and doing something about it are not the same thing.  This is where we have to ask questions in a very intelligent way, helping them to understand the opportunity cost of leaving things as they are now.  The latter is always the easiest choice for buyers and the worst result for salespeople.  Preparing for the opportunity cost discussion takes good planning and good data, in order to make the case appear overwhelming for taking action right now.

Intelligent questions build trust with buyers and leads them to willingly provide the information we need, in order to be able to help them.  Making no permission request to ask questions says, we are not smart. No questions at all and just moving straight in the pitch says, we are not smart.  Having no well designed implication questions says, we are not smart.  Buyers don’t want to deal with dumb salespeople, so we have to get busy on the basics again, as we start 2022.