Do Business Well

The questioning ideas will help you identify what’s really going on in just about any selling situation that involves a sales obstacle or challenge. Of course, you may wish to target your questions more specifically.

Below, you’ll find some more narrowly focused questions for specific challenges you may face.

I get the feeling you are not really happy with what I’ve proposed here. Am I right?

Use this for prospects who are noncommittal about the formal proposal you’ve developed. You may also want to use this question if you feel uncomfortable for any reason with the “Did I do something wrong” question or its variations.

Let me ask you something—by what point in time are you trying to achieve (X)?

Use this for situations where the prospect has agreed on everything but the timeline, which is perpetually vague for some reason.

Your aim is to find out whether the inability to commit to a specific schedule is the result of some as-yet-unidentified problem, or whether the person you are talking to simply has not thought through the logistics. If it is the latter, this question will help put you back on track. By asking, for instance . . .

When do you want your new stores to be open to the public?

. . . you will be in a much better position to determine when it is likely that you are going to need to deliver the shelving for those stores. If the contact is covering for some other obstacle, you may eventually get a straight answer by trying to focus on the specifics of the matter. That straight answer is likely to sound like this: “Here’s the thing, our budgets are frozen until the middle of April.”

I really didn’t anticipate that you’d say that. Why is that an important issue for you?

Use this in situations where you get a vague or incomprehensible late-stage negative response from the prospect. (For example, “I’m concerned about quality.”) The goal with this question is simply to get the person to offer more information, hopefully in the form of a story that will illustrate the concern in detail.

I realized I built the wrong plan for you. Can I meet with you on Tuesday at 2:00 and show you the new plan we’ve come up with?

Use this in situations where the prospect promises to give you a final decision at a certain point in time, then mysteriously evaporates into the ozone layer.

Let’s be honest—sometimes people try to deliver their bad news by not delivering it at all. If your prospect sends you all kinds of “let’s work together” signals for three meetings, then gets word from the president of the company that she wants to go in a totally different direction, the person may not be excited about filling you in on exactly what’s happened.

Instead of calling up and asking, “So—did you decide yet?” (a call prospects hate to get), use this question. By accepting responsibility” for the “wrong plan,” you’ll get either a new Next Step or a better explanation of what’s going on.

If you’re having trouble establishing voice-to-voice contact with your prospect, you should consider leaving a brief voice mail message that includes this question. Be sure to supply your return call number.

A good variation is:

I’ve been working on a plan with ABC Company, and I thought their plan might work better for you. Can we get together to discuss it on Tuesday at 2:00?

Suppose you have had three good meetings with the prospect, who assured you that it was “only a formality” that the boss would approve your deal. Somehow, though, three weeks have gone by, and you have gotten no word. Make this call (or leave this message)—and say, “Hey, there must have been something wrong. I was talking to a different company and they had something new that I want to try. I would like to go over a revision on the old plan with you and your boss.”

At that point you should ask:

Well, can you and I meet with your boss next Tuesday at 2:00?

If that doesn’t fly, you should ask:

Why don’t we set up a conference call so all three of us can go over the plan together—and see whether what I found out from ABC Company is relevant?

Obviously, a face-to-face meeting is preferable, but if this is the only option, take it.

We haven’t heard from you in a while. Did we do something wrong?

A variation, designed for use with an existing customer. Use this question to reinvigorate a relationship with a client you have not heard from in a while. It is considerably cheaper, of course, to hold on to a current client than it is to find a brand-new one. With that in mind, you should probably ask some variation on this question to any customer whose sudden absence is troubling to you. It is a great way to find what is going on in the other person’s world, and the same dynamic applies. Nine times out of ten, your customer will correct you by saying, “No, you didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just that we have been dealing with this crisis here and we’ve been distracted.” (Or some such reaction that gives you some insight into what is going on in the other person’s world.)

Regardless, you will get a clearer picture of the forces and pressures that your prospect is facing, and you’ll have a great opportunity to request a meeting.

It is possible, of course, that you did do something wrong, but just don’t know what it is. In that case, asking this question has a very good likelihood of pointing you toward exactly what happened, and will also leave you well positioned to schedule a face-to-face meeting so you can evaluate exactly what took place and how your organization can work to help keep it from happening again. (Note: In such a situation I do strongly recommend trying to find a way to schedule a face-to- face meeting with the customer who got less than your best.)

My boss would like to pay for you to come out here, meet him, and tour our facility. Can we do that?

Save this for the potentially huge account (or huge current customer) you know you are about to lose to a competitor. (Clear it with your boss first, of course.)

This kind of trip to “meet my boss” almost always unearths fresh information, and will sometimes rescue the sale for you. Changing the locale and getting another meeting is of paramount importance in this situation. As a general, but fairly reliable rule, you will get different and better information on a second meeting than you will on the first, and different and better information on the third meeting than you got on the second. You will also get different and better information by changing locales for the second and subsequent meeting, and you can usually rely on getting even higher quality information if the prospect makes the effort of coming to your facilities to make an in-person visit with you or the senior representatives of your company.

I was just thinking of you, and I’d like to see what you’re up to these days. Can we get together?

This question, like that one, is designed for current customers who haven’t been ordering from you lately.

You really don’t need a “reason” to call a key customer and ask for a meeting to catch up on what’s going on, of course.

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