Oh my God. (machine whirs)
Dumb questions.
Today we're gonna talk about
the seven dumb questions in sales.
I still sales people asking these dumb questions
ever damn day, and they don't know
what they hell they are doing.
The very first question, how are you?
Now why is this a bad question?
Do you know why?
Because it triggers an automatic response.
A trained automatic response.
Imagine when you're walking into the mall
and you go to one of the shops,
a sales person walks up to you and say
well how are you sir, how are you ma'am,
what's your first response automatically?
Trained, I'm just looking, I'm just browsing, right?
The minute you're on the phone when you say this,
well how are you?
What are you trying to sell me, jerk?
Why are you trying to sell me some stuff?
No good.
That kind of question, it doesn't
move the conversation forward
and it doesn't help your prospect.
It doesn't help you discover his or her needs.
It doesn't help you, so don't use how are you.
Second question, are you the decision maker?
What are you, it's none of your business, right?
When you ask someone are you the decision maker,
what do people say?
They lie.
So if they are the decision maker
now they're afraid because oh my goodness,
you're gonna force me to make a decision,
you're gonna know that I can make the decision,
I can make the purchase.
Well you're then now, you're like all like all like
jumping all on me, and twist my arm and get me to buy,
or if I'm not the decision maker,
they don't have the authority, guess what, they lie.
Right, they don't wanna look stupid,
they don't wanna look like they don't have the authority
to make decision so they say oh yeah sure,
I'm the decision maker,
and you're talking to the wrong person, right?
They actually cannot make the decision.
So don't ask that, that's such an outdated question,
don't ask are you the decision maker?
A much better question to ask is,
how do you make a decision of this nature?
How do you usually make a decision of this nature?
Oh well, you know, usually I would talk to my manager,
or usually I would talk to my team,
usually I would talk to my executive,
whatever it is, good, then you narrowed that down,
so don't ask are you the decision maker.
Dumb question number three.
So you're not interested in my blank?
So you're not interested in my product,
so you're not interested in my service,
so you're not interested in my offer?
No, I am not interested, right?
That is such a horrible way to ask,
because you're justifying your value.
Oh what do you mean you're not interested.
So you're not interested in buying?
No.
The prospect is saying I am not interested, right?
That kind of question it creates conflict
between you and the prospect.
And again, it doesn't move the conversation forward.
So don't ask that, don't ask that dumb question please.
Yes, don't ask the dumb question.
Dumb question number four, are you ready to buy today sir?
Are you ready to place your order today?
No!
Even if I'm ready I'm like oh my God,
have I just been taken advantage of?
What is going on?
It is so threatening, right?
It's too direct.
Are you ready to buy today.
No, don't ask that type of question.
Redirect, ask the questions to pull the prospect in.
You want them, you want the prospect
feel like they are the ones that are in charge.
If they do decide to move forward
it is because of their decisions.
It's not because you twist their arms,
it's not because you hot sell them,
you hot pressure them, no,
don't ask offensive questions like that,
ask a more neutral question,
where should we go from here
or what would you like to do next?
You see the difference?
Don't ask are you ready to buy today?
No, fuck off!
Dumb question number five, this one drives me crazy.
So you actually can't afford to buy this?
It's none of your damn business.
Right?
That's a question like, you are wanting
to sell so bad, right, you are wanting
to close the prospect so bad that you would
say something like this, so you actually can't
afford to buy something like this?
Where does that get you?
You're not solving problems,
it shows that you don't care,
it shows that whoa, like now you're talking
about my personal finance or my business finance,
like oo, what does that mean?
So you're challenging the prospect,
don't do that, all right?
You have to be much more caring.
Your tonality, the way you ask questions, right,
you want them to feel good about the purchase,
it's not just about closing the sale,
it's making sure that sale sticks.
And the only way the sale will stick is what?
The prospect fee is good about saying yes.
Help them solve the problem.
If finance is an issues, if they don't have the budget,
ask them, hm, what can I do for you
to help you solve this problem?
Suppose I could finance this for you
with no interest rate.
Suppose I could break it down into payment plan,
would that make a difference?
Do you hear the difference?
That's the difference, okay.
Number six, and this is very similar
to the second one.
This one is even worse,
and that is number six, are you saying
you don't have the power to make the decision on your own?
You see, like how offensive that is, how rude that is,
what do you want them to say,
how do you want them to reply to the dumb question, right?
What are they gonna say?
No?
Yeah, I can make a decision on my own,
or no, they're gonna lie to you and say yeah,
no I can make the decision on my own,
either way it doesn't get you anywhere right?
Don't use that kind of question.
Number seven, the last dumb question is this,
I hear this every day.
So Mr. Prospect, when should I call you back?
Never!
When should I call you back?
It is a horrible question.
It's a dumb question.
Here's why.
Doesn't matter what answer they give you,
it puts you in a very defensive position.
Example, when you ask the question,
so Mr. Prospect, when should I call you back?
Well yeah, maybe call me back a month later,
I'm too busy, okay, fine,
I'll call you back a month later.
What does that mean?
Either you have not properly qualified them
on the phone, right?
You couldn't close that sale,
you didn't get a commitment, right?
It's basically a polite way to say no to you.
Or now they actually need some time to think about it,
but in between if they cannot make the decision
with you on the phone,
what makes you think they can come to their own conclusion
and make the decision without you being there
overcoming some challenges,
giving them solutions, it is stupid, right?
Don't do it.
So what you wanna do is you wanna find out what is going on.
You wanna get very precise.
If they say, well you know what, call me back,
get a specific time,
in between what is gonna happen?
Exactly from now till then, right,
what can you provide, what additional information
can you provide to help them make that decision?
And exactly when you and your prospect is gonna
get on the phone, no oh you're gonna call me back,
because when you call back you are now playing defensive,
well, I'm just checking in with you,
I'm just following up with you,
those by the way are dumb phrases you don't wanna use.
Those are very common phrases that sales
people use who don't know what they're doing
and I'm a high ticket closer, that's not what they do.
So do not say when should I call you back.
Either you properly qualify them
or you disqualify them, or you work on some kind of solution
or if you need some kind of proposal,
which I don't like proposal,
but if you have to do a proposal,
exactly what that looks like.
What would it take for you to do business
with your prospect today?
Those are the seven dumb questions.
If you want to stop asking these dumb questions
and you want to know, hey Dan
what are some of the smart questions to ask,
what are some of the questions that your
high ticket closer asks?
Well let me share that with you.
Click the link below and join me for a two hour training.
Let me walk you through what are some
of the smart questions that you could ask.
Redirection questions, discovery questions,
reverse psychology questions, disqualifying questions,
those are much smarter and better questions.
Stop asking these stupid, dumb questions,
they're costing you money
and they are costing you sales.
This is entertaining as fuck.