Questions: The Problems and the Possibilities

/in , , /by

I recently accepted a cold call from an insurance guy because I was thinking of switching providers. Instead of facilitating my buying decision, the bias in his questions terminated our connection:

TODD: Hello Ms. Morgen. I’m Todd with XYZ. Are you interested in new car insurance?
SDM: I am.
TODD: Is your main concern lowering your costs?
SDM: No.
TODD: You don’t care about saving money?
SDM: Of course I do.
TODD: So your main concern IS lowering your costs?
SDM: No.
TODD: So what is it?
SDM: I’m interested in a personal connection, in knowing that if I have an accident I will be handled by someone who will take care of me.
TODD: I can promise you I’ll take care of you. My clients love me. Do you want to discuss how much you’ll save?

And, we were done.

Good sellers and coaches pose better questions than Todd’s, of course. But the conversation exemplifies how a Questioner’s biased questions can significantly influence outcomes.

The Bias Inherent in Questions

Questions restrict answers to the assumptions and biases of the Questioner; Responders respond within the limits set by the question. Asking someone “What did you have for breakfast?” won’t elicit the answer “I bought a lamp.” Even questions that attempt to open a dialogue, like “What can you tell me about the problem?” or gather data, like “Who’s in charge of decision making?” merely elicit top-of-mind responses that my not effectively represent – and indeed might cloud – the issue. Biased question; biased answer.

Sometimes questions are so biased and restricted that the real answer might get overlooked. ‘Do you prefer the red ball or the blue ball?’ excludes not only the green ball, but a preference for a bat, or a discussion about the Responder’s color blindness. But a question such as: ‘What sort of a game implement could be easily carried and engage all employees?” might elicit a response of a ball or marbles or Monopoly and include more team members.

Most questions pull or push the data sought by the Questioner, making it difficult to know if:

  • the communication partners make the same assumptions;
  • the wording of the question is ideal;
  • a better answer exists outside the limits of the question;
  • the question encompasses the full set of possible responses.

What if the best answer is outside of the framework of the question? Or the question isn’t translated accurately by the Responder? Or there is an historic bias between the Questioner and Responder that makes communication difficult?

Facilitative Questions

Questions can be used to facilitate choice, to lead Responders to new options within their own (often unconscious) value system, rather than as set ups to the Questioner’s self-serving objectives. Using a Facilitative Question, the above dialogue would sound like this:

TODD: Hi Ms. Morgen. I’m Todd, an insurance agent with XYZ Corp. I’m selling car insurance. Is this a good time to speak?
SDM: Sure.
TODD: I’m wondering: If you are considering changing your insurance provider, what would you need to know about another provider to be certain you’d end up getting the coverage and service you deserve?

The question – carefully worded to match a Responder’s criteria for change – shifts the bias from Todd’s self-serving objectives to enabling me in a true discovery process; from his selling patterns to my buying patterns. How different our interaction would have been if his goal was to facilitate my buying decision path rather than using his misguided persuasion tactics to sell.

I developed Facilitative Questions decades ago to enable any Questioner to facilitate someone’s route to congruent change. With no manipulation or bias, they require a different form of listening, wording, and objectives, thereby avoiding resistance and encouraging trust between sellers, coaches, consultants and their clients.

Take a look at your own questioning strategy to see if they might work for you:

  • How are your questions perceived by your Responders? How do you know? What’s your risk?
  • How do your questions address a unique Responder’s decision criteria?
  • How do your questions bias, restrict, enhance, or ignore possibilities?
  • What criteria to you use to choose the words to formulate questions?
  • To ensure any new skills would work effectively with your successful skills, what would you need to know or consider before adopting additional question formulation skills?

Remember: your innate curiosity or intuition may not be sufficient to facilitate another’s unconscious route to change – or buy – congruently. You can always gather data once the route to change is established and you’re both on the same page. Change the goals of your questions from discovering situations you can provide answers for, to facilitating real core change. Before buyers or clients will work with you, they have to do this for themselves anyway. You might as well do it with them and create a trusting relationship.

Facilitative Questions follow a specific path and wording. I’ve trained sellers to use them for lead generation, to make appointments with the right decision makers (often helped by gatekeepers) and teach prospects to assemble Buying Decision Teams and reach consensus; to help coaches find – and keep – ideal clients, and facilitate their change efficiently. They are great for small and complex sales, for prospecting and lead gen, for team building, for coaching clients seeking change, for change implementations. And for doctors, lawyers, communication professionals, therapists, school administrators, and leaders.

If you’d like to learn how to formulate Facilitative Questions, either get this Learning Accelerator, or contact me to discuss team training or coaching at [email protected]. You can read about the use of Facilitative Questions and the full path of change in Dirty Little Secrets: www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com.

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is founder of Morgen Facilitations, Inc. (www.newsalesparadigm.com). She is the visionary behind Buying Facilitation®, the decision facilitation model that enables people to change with integrity. A pioneer who has spoken about, written about, and taught the skills to help buyers buy, she is the author of the acclaimed New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: Why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

More BIG Questions and BIGGER Answers

/in /by

Here are a few more sales, business, and life answers that can help you make more sales TODAY, and help you build a personal brand and reputation FOREVER.

1. Jeffrey, what do you do EVERY DAY to build attraction and brand?

What do you do to create consistency in your daily business habits? And I wonder how many of your daily habits take the long-term view. Or are you just trying to make sales to make quota? Big mistake.

I want to talk about one element of your personal business habits: Your personal outreach, your daily outreach that builds attraction, personal brand, authority, known expertise, recognition, position in your industry, Google rank, social media presence, top of mind awareness, and reputation. Oh, that.

Sounds like a LOT of work. But actually it takes LESS time than your morning bathroom routine once you’re set up and rolling. And these are habits that create attraction. Real attraction. Value attraction.

The cool part is it costs (almost) nothing. All you have to do is allocate the time, and (most important) commit to DAILY OUTREACH.

Here are two of my consistent actions:

  • Blog or personal website. A starting place, a landing place, and a jumping off place for stories, ideas, opinions, photos, videos, training, and anything else your customers or followers would find BOTH interesting and valuable. On a blog you can mix business and personal, as long as it’s not offensive. Your posts can be subscribed to and delivered by email. OUTREACH: Blog with a minimum of a weekly, if not daily, post. You have unlimited space for text, photos, and videos. Your blog is an opportunity for people to realize both your intellect and your passion.
  • YouTube. Video is the new black. This is a chance to convey messages, training, subject matter expertise, testimonials, and offers of value. Your viewers can subscribe, and your posts can be cross-pollinated on your blog, your Facebook page, and your LinkedIn profile.

2. Jeffrey, there’s a HUGE misused and misunderstood word in small AND big business. The word is ATTRACTION. How do small business owners attract leads in today’s social world?

All business social media must be combined with your traditional business and Internet outreach. To attract, the key ideas are ‘personalized messages’ and ‘value-based’ messages.

If you’re looking for more attraction (who isn’t?), here are some of the small business, internet, AND business social media value-based messaging and marketing elements I use to transfer my messages. My messages and posts both attract and connect. Go to these links and follow me. Then study them, learn how I do what I do, and emulate it.

  • LinkedIn – Jeffrey Gitomer – The number one business resource. I post my thought of the day or link of the day. RESPONSE: People like it and share it with their connections. That has lead to more than 23,000 connections.
  • Twitter – @gitomer – I tweet three or four times a day. I usually send out one link a day. RESPONSE: I am re-tweeted or favored more than 100 times a day, and I gain between 50 and 100 new followers a day.
  • Facebook business – /jeffreygitomer – Like me, then read a bunch of my posts, then be inspired to comment or post. RESPONSE: All of my followers (likers) read it, and when they like it or comment, all of their connections can see it too.
  • YouTube channel – BuyGitomer – People watch a few of my 300+ videos. RESPONSE: more than 25,000 subscribers.

You cannot control how people search. You must be findable by company, person, product, topic, and keywords that will get your name to pop up.

It’s not one thing that creates attraction. It’s a strategic combination of a social, online, and face-to-face outreach MIX that attracts interested buyers. It’s a confluence of value-based things that are available to customers and prospects.

Look at the diversity of my offerings, and the multiple opportunities that prospects have to find you, be attracted to you, connect with you, and buy from you.

3. Jeffrey, how do I attract leads at a face-to-face networking event?

NOTE WELL: Most people take networking for granted, and think of it more as a place to meet friends and clients rather than capture an opportunity. They also fail to realize that people, whether you know them or not, are cultivating an impression of you – not just about what you look like, but also based on how you act, and how you dress.

Your physical presence, your physiology, and your communication prowess can determine whether the outcome is business or no business.

Here are 3 networking attraction tips for your learning and connecting pleasure:

1. I shake and look. When I shake someone’s hand, it’s a firm grasp and a direct look in the eye.

2. I smile. Even in New York City. I find that by giving a smile, I get a smile.

3. I ask before I tell. Whether I ask for their name, or a simple “how are you?” I want to hear the other person before they hear me.

Face-to-face networking is still a GREAT way to attract and connect in the world of social and online sales.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

3.5 BIG Questions and 3.5 BIGGER Answers

/in /by

1. How come people don’t call me back?

People not calling you back is not a problem, it’s a symptom.

Here are some of the real reasons people don’t call you back:
1. Boring message.
2. Insincere message.
3. Sales message not a value message.
4. Self-serving message.
5. No humor employed.
6. Non-compelling message.

How should you leave a voicemail?
Answer:

  • Give your name and number first
  • Offer facts and valuable information on what they want to hear (not what you have to sell) – 30 words or less and ASK for a callback or text
  • Give your name and number AGAIN

NOTE: If you have nothing of value to say, don’t bother picking up the phone.

2. Why is cold calling a waste of my time?

The three word definition of a cold call is – waste of time.

No one likes cold calls. Not the salesperson who makes them. And surely not the prospect who receives them.

“Cold calls are a necessary evil of selling” is a false statement. “Cold calls are a necessary evil if you don’t employ the correct selling strategies” is a true statement.

Here’s what waits for you at the other end of a cold call:
You’re calling people who don’t want what you’ve got.
You’re calling people who don’t know what you’ve got.
You’re calling people who don’t want to be bothered.
You’re calling people who resent being interrupted.
You’re calling people who resent intrusion.
You’re calling people who resent your call.
You’re calling people who will get angry at you or your company.

It’s not a ‘cold call.’ It’s an intrusion without an invitation. A gate-crash. And if handled poorly, will ruin future chances for a legitimate sales call.

Let’s see… poor timing, having a tough time getting through, and when you do – you fight for attention. 95 percent of those who get through are wholly untrained and incapable of selling anything anyway. What’s the point? Isn’t there a better way? Look at the other side – there is no worse way.

3. What is the BEST WAY to make a sale?

The easiest way to make a sale is lower your price to a point that you make no profit. Not a good option.

REAL ANSWER: There is no BEST WAY or EASIEST way to make a sale. BUT there are several elements that contain the word BEST that you must self-evaluate in order to discover why the sales takes place, or why not.

KEY POINT OF UNDERSTANDING: Selling is NOT manipulating. Selling is harmonizing.

Oh, you can occasionally make a manipulative sale. But if you’re still in the 1970’s trying to ‘find the pain,’ or ‘sell an up-front contract,’ or ‘make a cold call,’ or ‘close the sale,’ you’re toast. Sales toast.

Here are a few of the BEST ways to make a sale:

  • The best way to make a sale is to have your reputation precede you by word-of-mouth from your Google ranking, and from your business social media presence.
  • The best way to make a sale is to be known as a valued resource before you start.
  • The best way to make a sale is to be friendly before you start.
  • The best way to make a sale is to meet with the CEO or actual decision maker.
  • The best way to make a sale is not to be salesy, or cocky, or condescending.
  • The best way to make a sale is to find some common ground before you start the selling process.

3.5 How did my mother help me make sales?

Mother’s rules make for great salespeople.

I know this sounds hokey, but if you want to be a great salesperson, you should have listened to your mother.

Your mom said it best. As a child, when you were fighting or arguing with a sibling or friend, your mom would say, “Billy, you know better than that! Now you make friends with Johnny.”

Here are two major sales tips right out of mouth and memory of your mother:

Make friends. There’s an old sales adage that says, “all things being equal, people want to do business with their friends.” I say, “all things being not quite so equal, people still want to do business with their friends.” Your mother never told you to use the alternative of choice close or the sharp angle close on Johnny. She just said make friends. That may have been one of the most powerful sales lessons you ever got.

Say nice things. Your mother told you, “If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing.” I’m certain she only told you this a hundred times. Somehow after you got your business cards printed, that lesson was lost. Especially when you begin speaking about your competition. I’m sure your mother would approve of referring to them as, “My worthy competition.”

More motherly advice and answers next week… meanwhile, wash behind your ears.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

Using Buyer Personas During Pre-Sales Stages

/in , /by

Buyer Personas do a great job targeting marketing and sales campaigns to reach the most probable buying audience. But it’s possible to make them even more efficient.

Here’s a question: Do you want to sell/market? Or have someone buy? The belief is that if you can sell/market appropriately – the right campaign to the right buyer with the right solution at the right time – buyers will buy. If that were true, you’d be closing a helluva lot more than you’re closing. Sure, Buyer Personas make a difference in your close rate. But it could be higher.

Currently, your targeted campaigns blanket probable audiences and find buyers at the exact moment they are considering buying, merely closing the low hanging fruit. It’s possible to enter earlier and facilitate (and influence) the complete buying journey.

Stages in the Buying Decision Path

Sales and marketing address activities surrounding solution placement: solution pitch details, solution features, etc., vendor details, gathering needs. But neither facilitate the entire decision path which constitutes issues beyond choosing a solution. Some might call these ‘Pre-Sales’ events. I call it the Buying Decision Path, along which sales is merely one of the entry points needed to close a sale.

Briefly, here are the stages buyers go through prior to purchasing a solution (Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it fully details each stage www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com):

1. Idea stage.

2. Brainstorming stage. Idea discussed with colleagues.

3. Initial discussion stage. Colleagues discuss the problem, posit who to include on Buying Decision Team, consider possible fixes and fallout. Action groups formed. Research begins. New Team members invited.

4. Contemplation stage. Group discusses:
a. how to fix the problem with known resources,
b. whether to create a workaround using internal fixes or seek an external solution, and acceptable type/amount of fallout from each,
c. people who would need to buy-in.

5. Organization stage.

6. Change management stage. Group determines:
a. if more research is necessary (and who will do it),
b. if all appropriate people are involved (and who to invite),
c. a review of all elements of the problem and solution,
d. the level of disruption and change management as per type of solution chosen,
e. the pros/cons/possibilities of external solution vs current vendor vs workaround.

7. Coordination stage. Review needs, ideas, issues of any new members invited aboard and how they affect choices and goals; incorporate change considerations for each solution; delineate everyone’s thoughts re goals and change capacity; appropriate research responsibilities.

8. Research stage. Specific research for each possible solution; seek answers to how fallout or change would be managed with each solution.

9. Consensus stage. Buying Decision Team members meet to share research and determine the type of solution, fallout, possibilities, problems, considerations in re management, policies, job descriptions, HR issues, etc. General decisions made. Buy-in and consensus necessary.

10. Action stage. Responsibilities apportioned to manage specifics of Stage 9. Owners of tasks do thorough research and make calls to several vendors for interviews and data gathering.

11. Second brainstorming stage. Discussion on results of data gathering including fallout/ benefits of each. Favored vendors pitched by Team members.

12. Choice stage. New solution agreed on. Change management issues delineated and leadership initiatives prepared to avoid disruption. Vendor contacted.

13. Implementation stage.

Buyers have to manage these stages (most of which are not solution- or problem-specific) with you or without you. Without being directly involved with behind-the-scenes politics or processes you’re left waiting, pushing product data, and hoping to be there they’re ready. And knowing the details of your Buyer Persona is insufficient.

Do you want to sell/market? Or have someone buy? Right now your efforts to sell and market are bringing in no more than 5% close rate (net). To become the vendor who truly helps buyers buy, to get an early leg-up on the competition and become part of the Buying Decision Team during the Pre-Sales process, sales (entering at stage 1) and marketing (entering at stage 3) can add another layer of skills, tools, goals, and touch points.

Buying Facilitation® is a Pre-Sales Management model that I’ve developed and taught for 30 years. It employs a specific quided approach to lead buyers through their internal politics and change processes, with profoundly different results from using sales and marketing alone. It uses neither sales nor marketing thinking: it employs a new form of question, a different type of listening, and a systems-thinking role consistent with true consulting. And then you can sell or market earlier and faster, to the right people.

I can teach your sales team how to become facilitators, or show your marketing team ways to design the right questions to help buyers traverse each stage of their unique buying journey. See more articles on www.sharondrewmorgen.com. Or call me: Sharon Drew 512 457 0246.

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is founder of Morgen Facilitations, Inc. (www.newsalesparadigm.com). She is the visionary behind Buying Facilitation®, the decision facilitation model that enables people to change with integrity. A pioneer who has spoken about, written about, and taught the skills to help buyers buy, she is the author of the acclaimed New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: Why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

Learn how to hear buyers effectively with Sharon Drew’s new book What? offered free, digitally at www.didihearyou.com.

Proper, pointed, precise, purposeful response shortens the sales cycle.

/in /by

How do you respond to your customer’s words and barriers?
The answer is: CAREFULLY, TRUTHFULLY, and with AUTHORITY.

Whether it’s a bold statement in response to a challenge, or a it’s promise you make in order to gain buyer confidence, or it’s a guarantee that provides the prospect with peace of mind, whether it’s an irrefutable fact to prove your point, or it’s your ability to communicate passionately to the perspective buyer, the right words can create a buying atmosphere and complete a sale in a very few minutes.

The challenge to you, the salesperson, is to be prepared to respond to a challenge, not perplexed by what the customer is demanding and offer some weak excuse – or worse, give up.

I know you’re hoping for some examples, but as I mentally go through my ten biggest and most creative sales in New York City, I don’t believe any of them serve as good enough generic examples. So rather than be specific, and have non-applicable examples, I can tell you that if someone asks me a question that doubts my ability to deliver, or questions my price, or puts up some barrier to “yes,” I make an irrefutable, comforting guarantee, statement, or video that answers their concern, and moves me closer to mutual agreement.

Or better, I offer a video testimonial of someone else loving my offer and buying. This provides both proof and peace of mind. Having the videos requires work, and many salespeople will try to get by without them. You’ll be able to recognize them at once – they’re the ones that never make sales, and blame others for their failings.

If someone makes a statement that indicates interest, I immediately ask for a commitment. Or at least uncover if that is one of their motives for buying.

When someone throws a barrier at me, I take it as both a test and a challenge. Often times I have found that an objection or a barrier actually indicates customer interest and so I begin my response with a question that helps me understand what their true feelings are, and I might say something like, “wait a second! Are you saying that (___) is the only thing between you and an order?” And then I proceed from there. But I have taken the barrier or objection and immediately qualified it as the only one.

It amazes me how many salespeople take an objection or a barrier as a defeat. Maybe it’s my attitude or self-confidence level, but I have always looked at an objection as a road-bump on the path to a sale.

And if the buyer says that he or she has to consult with others, I immediately ask, “if it was only you, what would your decision be?”

You have to think “bottom line.” What can you ask or what can you say that will get your perspective buyer to the point of commitment? Or at least to an indication of purchasing interest. And all it takes to make that happen is proper preparation and brass balls. And both of those were developed in NYC.

In New York City, you don’t have a choice, you have to walk in razor-sharp and razor-prepared and razor-ready. Dull razors get thrown away. Cheap razors hurt and cause cuts. Everyone knows that.

Here’s what to do:

1. List every possible barrier and objection.

2. Prepare responses for each one that have value or create WOW!

3. Look for customers that have purchased in spite of the barrier and get them to shoot a short video explaining why they bought and what happened AFTER purchase. (HINT: That’s where the value is!)

3.5 Stay at it until you have at least 25 examples and 25 videos.

Sound like a lot of work? It is! For years I have made the statement, “Most salespeople will not do the hard work it takes to make selling easy. Preparation is hard, but if it’s done right, selling is easy.”

How prepared are you?
How easy are your sales?

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].