Asking questions — a new idea

How do we determine if we have a viable opportunity? The way that we determine if we have an opportunity most simply is asking, but before you can get to that point, there are a lot of questions that typically need to be asked. We’re going to ask very intelligent questions and ones that are not cheesy, sales-oriented questions. Nothing like, “What’s it going to take for me to earn your business?” That’s a question that is best buried under six pounds of dirt somewhere.

What we want to do is we want to ask questions that are intelligent, thoughtful, and centered around helping our client. What we want to do is ask question that are those which show concern for the outcome.

After the initial, “Hey, how are you?”, one of the best questions to lead into is “We like to learn about our clients and work them in one of two ways. The first way is we ask a great number of questions to understand what is going on inside the company and we then we can find out if we can help you meet strategic objectives. Maybe you have some short-term needs that need to be addressed right away, so we’ll talk about a lot of things like that, where we ask the majority of the questions. The second way is to talk about solutions that we’ve put in place for companies like yours. We’ll assume a lot when we say that, but it will give you an idea – maybe, let’s think of it as a longer term commercial for the type of work that we do. From there, we need to ask you some questions about how those solutions may apply. Which way would you prefer?”

Some people like to answer questions. They like to talk about their business. Other people have sort of a sales armor beforehand and they like to hear a little bit about your company and make some judgments about who you’ve worked with in the past, what type of solutions that you’ve put in place, and when you do that, you’re asking for their opinion. So, they get the opportunity to make a decision with you in the first few minutes of the meeting and, at that point, both you and they know exactly how to frame the rest of the meeting.

You’re asking a bunch of questions, which is great, or you’re telling them – you’re able to give your commercial and then ask the questions. Either way, you need to end up in the situation where you’re asking questions of them because you already know what your company has done. You want to find out if any of those solutions that you put in place for other companies can be put in place for them.

Next, talking to the right people…