In an article by Aja Frost for Hubspot, a developer and marketer of software products, she talks about asking unexpected, original questions that allow a salesperson to understand what a prospect is thinking about.
Most clients are posed the same questions by salespeople, says Ms Frost. These cliché questions negatively affect your reputation as the client will think of you as another generic salesperson, and may in turn elicit a standard response from your prospect that they've given to other similar sales calls. From this point on it will be hard to re-engage them and you will lose the opportunity to get valuable information that the rest of the market doesn't have.
It is important to keep your buyer’s attention and understand what he is thinking. To do this, you must ask questions he may not be expecting. The following inquiries from Ms Frost, while somewhat "in your face", could be useful in engaging with your client to achieve honest answers from them, especially for the agent or adviser approaching a new prospect ‘cold’ when he/she is not actively seeking advice for a financial product.
1) “It’s [date two months from now]. You haven’t purchased [product]. Why not?”
This question dives directly into your prospect’s concerns and surfaces potential internal obstacles.
This is a variation of the traditional question, “What would stop you from buying [product]?” But because your prospect hasn’t heard this question posed in this manner before, he is more likely to share honest thoughts with you.
Providing a date and timeline is effective. The prospect immediately pictures himself in that scenario, on that day in the future. This allows you the opportunity to impress upon the prospect what are the likely consequences of not making the purchase.
2) “Why?”
Most salespeople respond to objections by prospects is to let the prospect that know that their concerns are unfounded. However, this approach can backfire. Prospects often end up more certain that their worry is legitimate.
A better way to tackle this is by getting your prospect to convince themselves. If they say, “That price is too high,” ask, “Why is that?”
If their response is “I can get a similar product for a better price than what you are offering”. You can take this opportunity to establish your product’s relative ROI.
When a prospect says that “There’s no way my boss/wife would ever allow me to buy this” It’s a natural reaction to immediately offer compelling arguments backed up with case studies that your prospect can use to persuade their boss. Simply saying “Why?”, however, is usually more effective.
By asking why, your prospect might give you answer that you hadn’t anticipated, such as, “We bought a similar product and we were very disappointed with it”. By having this important an honest piece of information, you can allay the buyers concerns and fears.
3) “What’s your best alternative?”
Your prospect, who is seriously considering your offer will also be looking at other options and alternatives. The prospect may even be considering the option to not do anything.
Rather than avoiding talking about the alternatives, be open about it with your prospect. You can highlight your solution’s unique strengths in comparison to the alternatives your prospect might be considering. If, on the other hand, the top alternative is building an internal version, you might bring up the opportunity cost of waiting for a development team versus installing the product immediately.
You need to establish trust before you ask this, or it may rub your prospects the wrong way. These questions are designed to catch prospects off-guard -- not enough to harm the relationship, so as to provoke an authentic response.
These questions will allow you to have additional valuable information from your prospects.
Read more here.