8 X Questions To Ask A Prospective Client
Questions are an excellent way to win sales – because when asked correctly, they achieve three distinct outcomes for you.
First of all – they identify if the potential client is qualified or not for your offer.
By qualified, I mean can they afford your offer, fit into one of your buyer personas, and benefit from your offer.
Secondly, when asking effective questions (like the questions to ask a prospective client you’ll learn here), you open up and understand what really it is that they’re wanting to buy.
On the surface they may tell you they want to buy one thing – but by asking open-ended questions, you may learn something else altogether.
Finally, it gives you the opportunity to help them sell themselves.
When you’re prematurely pitching, there’s a chance they’ll believe you.
When you ask great questions and they answer, they start selling themselves on a need for a solution.
In this article, we’ll look at eight important questions to ask a prospective client, so you can win more sales, and serve more people.
8 X Questions To Ask A Prospective Client
Questions To Ask A Prospective Client #1
“Contrary to other Sales Professionals out there; I’m going to be asking you a few deep diving questions today, because I truly want to understand if I can help you, and whether or not you’ll benefit from our product/ service – is that OK?”
This is a powerful question, and one that I personally like to lead with.
The reason being is during your sales process, you’re going to be going into pain and desires. Sometimes this can be a bit uncomfortable for your prospective client.
By letting them know and getting permission up front; it’s a lot easier to ask these questions later.
Secondly, by letting them know you’re interested in learning more about whether you can in fact help serve them or not; helps alleviate a lot of tension.
So many Salespeople out there want to make a quick sale.
By letting you know you want to discover whether you can in fact or not, takes away a lot of stress and will allow them to open up more with you.
Questions To Ask A Prospective Client #2
“If you were happy with everything you hear today; who else would have to be involved in the decision-making process?”
Of all the questions to ask a prospective client, you’d be surprised by how many leave out this extremely important question.
How many times have you come across a potential client who seemed eager and ready to buy – only to tell you after your presentation that they need to speak with their boss, partner, procurement, or some other manager?
Before you start your sales interview questions, find out who the decision makers are, and try to get them all involved prior to presenting.
If this is not possible, listen on for the next question.
Questions To Ask A Prospective Client #3
“If you were happy with everything you hear today; do you think you’d be able to share who the decision makers are, and we get in front of them together to discuss it further?”
This question does two important things.
First of all, it detects whether they’re just fishing for information, or if they’re serious about buying a solution for their problems.
If they’re hesitant, don’t assume and dig deeper. Find out why.
Secondly, you get permission to learn more about key decision makers, and now have an ally to help you sell within the organisation.
Questions To Ask A Prospective Client #4
“Before your business generally makes a decision – what needs to happen? What’s involved, and what does the process generally look like?”
One of the important questions to ask a prospective client is learning about how they make buying decisions.
Assumptions kill sales – and we don’t want to assume that we know how they will buy.
Instead, find out what the process looks like within, who’s involved, and whether you can tweak and tailor your step by step process to accompany how they make decisions.
Questions To Ask A Prospective Client #5
“What do you think are the most important outcomes you need to achieve this year – and why?”
Instead of prematurely presenting your product or service and hoping something will stick, try this one.
It’s one of the learning questions to ask a prospective client to understand what’s important to them, and how you can potentially align your product or service to delivering those outcomes.
By asking why; it gets them to also dive a bit deeper.
As mentioned, we don’t want to assume at face value what their important outcomes are.
By having them dive deeper, we truly learn what it is they want and need.
Questions To Ask A Prospective Client #6
“At the end of my presentation today; sometimes people don’t feel comfortable with it and think it won’t be the right fit – I’m completely cool with you telling me no. Is that OK with you?”
Sometimes people get a bit confused when I share this as one of my key questions to ask a prospective client, because they think they’ll lose sales.
That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Many Sales Professionals and Business Owners chase people they think are prospective clients, when realistically they’ve already been put in the ‘no’ box.
Don’t focus your energy chasing people who aren’t the right fit.
Bonus tip: This also gets rid of the I need to think about it objection, when they really mean no.
What To Ask Once You’ve Asked All Your Questions
“So what’s the next step from here?”
If you’ve asked these questions prior, you’ll have the decision makers with you, and you’ll have them comfortable saying no.
Generally, here – people will either want to buy, or will talk to you about their sales objections.
This is completely OK.
To help you out here, check out a related article below, so you can learn what to do next.
Related article: How To Overcome Any Sales Objection – A Step By Step Process
The Lucky Last Question
“What investment have you put aside to fix these issues?”
This question although last in this article, shouldn’t be the last in your sales process.
In fact, in The 5% Sales Blueprint; we teach Sales Professionals and Business Owners to cover the topic half way through your process.
The reason why; is you want to understand what budget they’ve put aside to fix the issue, and also learn how much pain they relate to what they’ve told you, and what will happen if they don’t fix their pain points.
If they don’t think it’s a big financial problem or solution to solve; they may not invest.
The more they amplify; the more they’ll set aside to fix it.
Final Thoughts
These eight questions to ask a prospective client are important and should be used at various stages throughout your sales conversations.
If you would like to learn more about how you can consistently close more clients without being pushy, register for the 7 day sales challenge here.
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