What Are Assumptive Close Questions? (With Examples)
One of the most important parts of the sales process, is getting agreement from your potential clients during your sales conversation; or sales process.
A way that you can effectively do this, is by using something called assumptive close questions.
In this article, we’re going to look at what assumptive close questions are, as well as explore some examples for you to use and get inspiration from.
What Are Assumptive Close Questions? (With Examples)
What Are Assumptive Close Questions?
Also known as assuming the sale, assumptive close questions are questions which you ask that elicit a response of agreement.
Take note here that I haven’t stated that you need a definite yes – more importantly, what you want here is agreement from your potential client instead.
By asking assumptive questions, you’re asking questions where you’ll assume the answer to the question that you ask.
The response to this should be purposed to get agreement from your potential client.
Learn more: How To Stop Winging It, And Learn Exactly How To Close Consistent Sales With Ease
Why Is Agreement Important?
The reason you should use assumptive closes (assumptive close questions) as mentioned, is because you want to get agreement from your potential client.
In NLP, or Neuro Linguistic Programming, it’s taught that if you want to subtly create change within your clients, you need them to agree to things internally by asking powerful questions.
When you ask a question which results in a yes, what you’re doing is having the person agree with you during your sales conversation.
The more questions that you ask that result in a yes (or agreement), the higher the likelihood when you start speaking about your offer later – are they to agree to it as well.
How Do Assumptive Close Questions Work?
The reason assumptive close questions work, is because by having them agree or say yes, they slowly start selling themselves.
Objections and other sales resistance comes from challenging the persons individual belief systems.
People generally hold their beliefs as concrete fact, so by challenging their beliefs you risk breaking rapport (try arguing with someone you know is wrong – but believe their argument anyway!).
By having them agree or say yes, you’re now making it their belief and no longer just yours.
It is a lot more easier to have a person sell themselves on an idea; than for you to do the persuading and trying to convince them to buy.
Assumptive close questions work because you’re helping the person sell themselves, rather than you do all the hard work of trying to sell them.
Assumptive Questions Examples
Below are several assumptive questions examples to help you with what you’ve read so far:
- “Wouldn’t you like to get more leads if you potentially could?”
- “Thanks for sharing that. I’m sure it must be tiring having to deal with that every day?”
- “If you were able to learn how to close more efficiently, would you agree that you’d most probably increase your income?”
- “I understand; B2B sales lead generation can be difficult. If you had a step by system that generated more leads without cost, would that make your job a lot easier?”
- “I appreciate you sharing that – keeping your customers happy after every sale is important, isn’t it?”
Of course the list of questions that elicit a yes response are endless; however these are a few examples to demonstrate to you how they work.
For your assumptive questions to work, ensure you use them sporadically and don’t go over the top.
The aim is to try and get your potential clients to internally create a pattern of ‘yes’ and agreement.
For this pattern to work though, it needs to be subconscious and not overly obvious or pushy.
Next Steps
Do you have any other assumptive close questions that work? Feel free to share them in the comments.
Furthermore if you want to learn how to take your sales conversations to the next level, register for our 7 day sales challenge here.
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