Cheat Sheet — The 10th Thing You Need to Accelerate Sales
So, let’s make use of the time over this second coffee and green tea at Morning Owl to hammer out some questions to ask in the sales process. While we are waiting for your buyer to finish errands.
One of my customers, a CEO and serial entrepreneur, told his CSO and VP of Sales in my presence a month or so ago that, “Susan’s sales process is slower, but I believe it will yield more customers in the long term.”
Unless your sales process is 100% automated, that is the value of asking questions and co-driving. A more predictable pipeline and more closed deals.
Let’s get right to it. Grab a couple of napkins and write these questions down ...
Questions you can ask your buyers to get them back on the highway.
There are SOOOOOOOO many questions we can ask as a co-driver.
This list will give you a start — ask these:
What problem are you trying to solve?
What has changed to drive this need?
What are you using today?
What isn’t working for you?
How critical is this to your organization?
Nice to have? Frustrating? Impact? Do or die?
What is the impact of implementing this? ($%#t)
Are you ready to see a demo/have a discussion about how we can help? Y / N
Who else needs to be involved in the decision/demo? Name? Role?
What do you feel you need?
Is this a fit? Y / N
What other options/companies are you considering?
How do we measure up?
Are you comfortable that what we have discussed works for you? Y / N
Would you like to move forward? Y / N
How soon do you need to have this in place?
Are you ready to review the contract, which will be exactly what we discussed? Y / N
Why THESE questions?
I’d like you to think of these as “basic sales” questions. If we haven’t asked these, in some form or another, we aren’t co-driving.
Think of these questions like a highway with major cities on it. No roadsigns or off-ramps or on-ramps for smaller towns. Just the basics.
But these questions will get you from here to there. Depending on how sophisticated you are as a seller, you can either use these questions to start being an Asker, or you can use them to remind you that you have been forgetting certain questions and that is why things aren’t moving the way they used to.
Let me quickly tell you which of these questions are MOST important and WHY. (Our driver should be along any minute. Want to get through this.)
“What has changed to drive this need?” tells you whether a buyer is REALLY in a buying decision or not. If nothing has changed, they are likely just thinking, looking, planning. Critical to know. Downgrade them to Scenic Route in your pipeline.
“How critical is this to your organization?” tells you how quickly they may move. Won’t move at all for a Nice to Have. Will move with much convincing for Frustrating. Will definitely move quickly and deliberately for an Impact. And are probably out of earshot for Do or Die.
“Who else needs to be involved in the decision/demo?” helps you avoid thinking you are almost at the City of More Customers when you realize, too late, that there were other important stakeholders we didn’t stop and pick up and that without them there will be no sale.
“Are you ready to review the contract, which will be exactly what we discussed?” helps you STOP, STOP, STOP writing quotes that sit in emails and don’t get actioned and will force you to continue the discussion until you have a committment from the buyer to buy BEFORE you waste time on writing a proposal.
Make sense?
HOW and WHEN do you ask these questions?
I said you should ask these questions “in some form or another.” Sometimes you don’t have to ask them – the customer provides the answer without the questions.
You can ask them different ways with different wording.
Different people can ask the questions — depending on how many people are involved in your sales call.
Sometimes you ask in an email. Sometimes over coffee. Sometimes directly. Sometimes casually as you say goodbye — “Oh, by the way …"
And you won’t get all of the answers at once. Hardly ever.
Drop a question here. Drop a question there.
(WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T GO INTO A MEETING AND READ THIS LIST OF QUESTIONS YOU WILL SCARE YOUR BUYER TO DEATH AND HE WILL DRIVE OFF THE ROAD AND HAVE AN ACCIDENT.)
Your turn to try co-driving!
I’m going to give you a little go at co-driving.
Try out some of these questions over the next two weeks. And let me know how it goes.
I’ve had my customers grab a paper out of my hand with these questions when they first saw them and run straight into a meeting and use them.
And come out saying “Wow, what a great conversation!”
Maybe that will happen to you, too ...
Oh!
I see our driver coming.
Better get packed up and get back to the car … for the next leg of the roadtrip!
Talk soon.