Sales Questions
STOP using Sales
Techniques that worked ten years ago!
To sell your value, you need to know your value from the prospect’s perspective. This requires you to ask questions that uncover the ways that your product or service helps the prospect’s bottom line.
A. Find the customer’s problem or opportunity.
1. “If you had our product/service, what would you hope to accomplish with it?”
2. “If you had a magic wand, what would you want this to do for your company?”
3. “How do you want your people/company to be changed by this?”
4. “Who asked for this and why did they want it?”
5. “How would you know if this purchasing decision was a success?”
6. “Last time you made this type of purchase, how did it work out? Why”
B. Identify those who will benefit
7. “What other departments will benefit from this?”
8. “Who else will be involved in this decision? What is their primary interest?”
9. “Last time you made this type of purchase, who was involved?”
C. Determine their metrics (how they will measure the benefit)
10. “How would you measure the success of this product/service?”
11. “How would your boss or CEO measure the success?”
12. “What are the metrics that your company focuses on?”
ROI = Benefit / Cost
Revenue per employee, Units per hour
EBTDA = Earnings before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization
Gross Sales, Gross Profit, Net Profit
New Customers, Market Share
Employee satisfaction, Reduced turnover
Reduced liability
D. Get their numbers – ask for hard numbers to quantify your value
13. “If we are successful, what percentage change would you reasonably expect?”
14. “What has your history been with this?”
15. “What are your current sales?” “What were they last year?”
16. “What are your goals?” “What is your current status?”
17. “What is your current profit margin? What should it be after buying our service?”
E. Confirm your position – once you have the numbers, be sure your assumptions are correct.
18. “If I understand correctly, if we are able to reduce costs by 1%, that works out to a $1M savings. Is that correct?”
19. “If I understand correctly, you spent $500,000 in legal fees last year. You hope this program would reduce that by 10% or $50,000 this year. Correct?”
20. “If I understand correctly, if you were able to increase thru-put by 5% you would increase profits by 3% or $250 million. Correct?”
F. Present the value – include this type of statement in your proposal. It puts your price in perspective.
? “Based on your numbers, this program should increase new clients by 9% or 500 this year alone. Since your average lifetime customer value is $800 this program should give you are return of $400,000 based on the first year’s results alone.”
? “Based on your numbers, if we are successful in reducing employee turnover by 20%, that would result in 500 fewer hires a year at a savings of $1000 each or $500,000 in the first year alone.”
G. Up sell to achieve the results
? “In order to ensure the success of this program, we recommend the following steps in the process.”
? “Based on our experience, here are the steps required to ensure that we reach your goal.”
H. Close
? “The sooner we get started, the sooner you will see the results. Let’s start the development phase immediately. I’ll fax you an invoice today. I can ask my team to begin work as soon as we have the check.”
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