The 3 Questions to Ask To Transform Your Sales Results

We explore three transformative questions that can dramatically improve sales performance by helping you identify and focus on ideal clients who are most likely to buy.

• What problems do you solve for clients that keep them awake at night?
• Where do your ideal clients "hang out" and how can you position yourself to be visible to them?
• How do you identify people who are NOT your ideal clients so you can qualify them out quickly?
• Creating a checklist of qualifying questions helps identify perfect-fit customers
• During sales slumps, resist the temptation to sell to everyone—it only makes things worse
• Being honest with non-ideal prospects builds trust and sometimes reverses the sales dynamic
• Focus your limited time on people who are very likely to buy from you

Please like, subscribe, and leave a comment if you found this helpful. If you have questions you'd like covered in future podcasts, please get in touch.

Chapters

• 0:24 Welcome and Introduction
• 2:03 Question 1: Problems You Solve
• 4:33 Question 2: Finding Your Ideal Clients
• 10:15 Question 3: Qualifying Out Non-Ideal Clients
• 14:08 Key Takeaways and Conclusion

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

Hello and welcome to another podcast. Now, in the next few minutes, I am going to give you three questions that you can ask which can transform your sales performance. So if you are struggling, if things aren't going well or your sales figures could be better, I strongly recommend that you just hang on for the next few minutes and I'm going to take you through three simple questions which can make a huge difference to how well you're doing. But before I do that, just a reminder to ask you to like subscribe, leave a comment if you would like to. That would be great. And if you have any questions you'd like me to cover in these podcasts, please give me a comment, drop me a line, just get in touch.

Speaker 1: 0:57

So there are three very, very simple questions you can ask and in my experience they can solve the fundamental issues that a lot of salespeople I've found have when they are struggling. And, very simply, it's because they're talking to the wrong people. So we all have so many hours in a day and, very simply, it's because they're talking to the wrong people. So we all have so many hours in a day. And obviously this podcast is aimed at you if you are doing face-to-face type sales especially, so not just online, but if you are having conversations with your clients and prospective clients. This is the podcast for you. So the big mistake that a lot of people make is they just spend their time the limited time they have talking to the wrong people and they end up trying to sell to people who will never buy, and they do that because they don't know who they should be talking to. So if this is sounding familiar to you, then I recommend you step back and just ask yourself the first question, which is are the problems that I solve for my clients and remember, salespeople, we're problem solvers. That's what it's about. We're serving other people. So what are the problems that I solve? And you want to get very clear on that, because if you don't know what the problems are that you solve, you're going to really struggle to find the right people to be talking to.

Speaker 1: 2:27

So another way of looking at that is to just ask the question think of your clients what is the problem that is keeping them awake at night? What is the key issue that they need to find a solution for? Because if it's keeping them awake at night, they clearly have a problem and it has a degree of urgency about it, which is obviously what we want. When we're trying to close sales, we need to ideally have them close very quickly. We don't really want to be talking to people who aren't looking to do anything for six months, a year, two years, whatever it might be, because although we might be able to offer them a great solution, we've got our cash flow to think about, and that doesn't happen with sales that are months, years in the future. So first question months, years in the future.

Speaker 1: 3:20

So first question what are the problems that are keeping our prospective customers awake at night that we can solve? And you have to be really clear on that and that problem or those problems. These are short sentences. So the first thing to do is to just sit down with a piece of paper and just go through, or on your iPad or whatever you use, but just answer that question in one, two, three, four sentences, whatever it is. There might be one very specific problem that you solve. There might be a group of problems that you solve, so, whatever it is for you, you need to be very, very clear about what they are, and if you can't get clear, then you've got a real problem, frankly, and that may be why you are struggling to make sales. So this is absolutely fundamental and this is where you need to be spending your time. Step back, answer that question. Step back, answer that question. So that's the first question to be thinking about.

Speaker 1: 4:21

The second one is where do I find these people? How do I identify them? So the first part of that is looking at where they hang out. Are they in business? Groups like BNI is a networking group that is pretty international, so you might know of that, might be a member of that, so maybe you can find people through BNI. And, in fact, one of the disciplines to have if you are in a networking group, one of the ways that a lot of these groups function is that for everybody who's a member in the group, they will share usually every meeting and describe the kind of clients they're looking for. And the reason that you do that is that if you're in these kind of groups, you're not really interested so much in selling to the people in the group, although that might happen. But what you are interested in is selling into their contacts, the kind of people that they deal with on a day to day basis, because with their business and your business, you may well be able to come up with a broader solution to those people's clients. So you need to be able to describe very succinctly so again, in two or three sentences and in 20 seconds, possibly less who your ideal clients are, who are the people that will have the problem that you can solve.

Speaker 1: 5:47

How do you get somebody else to keep on the lookout for potential clients for you? Because you need to be able to describe that and obviously you'll be doing that yourself, but you need to know where they hang out. So, are they in business networking groups? Do they come in off the street? How do you find them? Is it through advertising? If you're looking at advertising on social media platforms, for example, where are you most likely to find them? Are they on LinkedIn? Are they on LinkedIn? Are they on YouTube? Are they on Twitter? Are they on TikTok that was the one I was trying to remember or Facebook or any of the other ones.

Speaker 1: 6:28

So you need to understand where these people hang out and where they can find you, because where you need to position yourself and this I'm going to borrow this from somebody who I've been getting business coaching from, but they have a great analogy If you imagine you're setting up a stall and nearby is a river, and that's where the people that you're looking for are traveling down this river. Or it could be a road. Let's say it's a highway and you're setting up a stall, we're going to sell them something. Do you set your stall up right next to the road, or do you set it up half mile away, a couple of k's away, whatever it might be? So that's the whole point about it. You need to position yourself, you need to put yourself somewhere where you're visible, to where they normally go, and this is absolutely fundamental as well.

Speaker 1: 7:21

So, just to recap, what's the problem that you solve? And that problem is going to be a problem that is keeping your potential clients awake at night. So that's the first question Be really, really clear about what the problem is that you solve. And the second question is how do you identify them? And part of that is where do they hang out? So that's the first part of how you identify them. The second part of how you identify them is to come up with a list of questions and this leans into the third question, but to come up with a list of qualifying questions. So what I mean by that is to ask very straightforward questions, very simple yes-no questions. Straightforward questions, very simple yes, no questions where? If they answer yes to all of those questions, that will identify them as the people that you need to be selling to.

Speaker 1: 8:18

So it could be, let's say, if you are selling the car and it's a family car and you know that the people where you get your best sales on this particular model of car are families, where there's a couple of adults, a couple of children and they like to go away at weekends. So they regularly go away at weekends and they might go, let's say, 200 k's away, that sort of thing, but they'll be going away regularly that sort of thing, but they'll be going away regularly. And the reason that that's an advantage for that particular model of car is that it can accommodate that number of people and their luggage and whatever else it is they do. So if they're going surfing, for example, you've got to accommodate a couple of surfboards, for example. So think about the people that you are having the most success with at the moment.

Speaker 1: 9:11

Or, if you're not having any success, what is your product or solution aimed to solve, what are the problems that it's solving, and then take that back to who are the people who are going to have that, let's say, problem or have that requirement, however you want to word it requirement, however you want to word it. So you come up with the questions that allow you to come up with a checklist. Basically that if those people that you're talking to can check every box, can tick every box, then you know that they are your ideal client. They are the people that you have the greatest chance of success selling to. And this leads us into the third question, or the third aspect of this, and that is how do you identify the people that are not your ideal client? And again, if you have that checklist correct, as they start to answer no to those questions, that checklist series of questions, you know that the more no's you get to those questions, the lower your chances are of selling to them.

Speaker 1: 10:23

And one of the problems that I've seen with salespeople again and again is that when they start getting under a bit of pressure and the sales aren't happening and they're not hitting target and if it's your own business, you're just looking at your cashflow disappearing. And now you're starting to wonder how you can pay the bills If you've got staff, how you can pay them, what people tend to do in that situation is to panic a little bit and start trying to sell to everyone, and all that does is it makes the situation worse, because we've all got so many hours in a day and we really need to maximize the number of those hours we spend with people who are very likely to buy from us, and what tends to happen is where they put all of their time and energy is into people who will never buy from us, and what tends to happen is where they put all of their time and energy is into people who will never buy from us. So this is really fundamental, and if you can get this part of the process correct this is your qualifying process then your chances of making sales go up dramatically. And one of the big things you have to be prepared to do is to say no to people, just to say to them look, based on what you want as a solution and based on my experience of my solution with people who get the best results from it, my advice to you is that you look for something else. I don't think we'd like this to be a good fit.

Speaker 1: 11:56

Now, a couple of things happen when you do that. One is you build up trust because you're being straightforward and honest. Secondly, they might really want to buy your product. And remember, a lot of buying decisions are made emotionally. They're not made logically. Again, it depends a bit on what you're selling, but looking at the broad market let's say people who buy anything in a lot of instances if you think about things you've bought, you actually make your decision emotionally. It's on something you like. You like the color, you like the shape, you like certain aspects of it and you know that other aspects of that particular solution don't actually meet your requirements.

Speaker 1: 12:41

So, for example, if you're selling luxury cars, that is an emotional buy, because nobody needs a luxury car. If you think about, you know what's a car for it's to get you from one place to another. You might need to take other people with you, or your animals or a certain luggage, however you want to describe it but all of those requirements can be met with a very basic, very cheap vehicle. So why would you want a luxury car? Well, that's an emotional buy. So One of the great things about using this approach by using the checklist approach and being straight up with somebody who is not likely to be your ideal client is that if you tell them that and I've experienced this, this talking from experience. I've actually had this situation happen where my client is making the argument about why they should buy from me and I'm almost telling them, well, I don't think you should, and it sort of switches the roles almost. So this is really important stuff and that pretty much is what I want to cover in the podcast.

Speaker 1: 13:56

So again, just to recap so first you've got to be really really clear about what the problem is that you're solving with whatever it is you're offering. And if you're not sure about that, think about the people where you've had the most success, the easiest sales that you've had, the people who are getting the biggest benefit from what you're offering. The people maybe you've come back and either bought again or they've recommended their friends, people, family, whoever it is. So get very clear on who those people are and what the problem or problems are that you've solved for them, because that is really important to know. And if you don't know that, you have a real problem. So how do you then describe that person?

Speaker 1: 14:39

If you were to stand up at a networking event, at a business breakfast, let's say, and you've got 20 or 30 seconds to describe not so much what you do but who you help, because the purpose of standing up at one of these meetings and if you've never done it, you maybe want to think about it if it's appropriate for what you do, but I have done them, I've been involved in several and the purpose of standing up is not to talk about you and your business because nobody cares. Frankly, the reason to stand up is to describe the people you're looking for and you want the people who are listening in the room to think oh yeah, I know somebody like that. That's Bill, that's Jennifer, whoever it is, but that's what you want them to be doing. You don't want them to be thinking about what a great guy you are, great woman you are for doing what you do. Nobody cares. You want them, in that situation, to be thinking about who they know, who fits that profile. So that is really important.

Speaker 1: 15:40

So if you know the person and know the problem, you can then put a checklist together that allows you, as you're talking to them, to say yes or no to the key aspects of what it is you do, the key aspects of your solution, and you really want to be looking at qualifying out the people who you cannot sell to, and this is so important because a lot of salespeople and it is the ones who are in trouble they have a real issue with saying, no, you're not the person I want to sell to or that I think I can sell to, and this is where the fatal mistake happens.

Speaker 1: 16:18

So don't be afraid of qualifying people out, because it is absolutely fundamental. You need to be doing that if you're going to be successful, because once you've qualified out the people you can't sell to, then the people who are left are the ones you've got a really good chance of selling to, and these are the people where you want to be spending your time. So that's the podcast for today. I hope you found that useful and, as I said, please like subscribe. That might be in the little bit at the end as well, but I will say it because a very, very small, tiny percentage of the people who listen to these podcasts are actually subscribed. So please help me, because it helps me to keep going. Okay, okay. So, whatever you're doing, good luck with your sales, and I will speak to you in the next podcast. Bye for now.