- This video is a live role play
about how you ask questions linked to pains,
in particular, that you solve in the prospecting journey.
(relaxing tonal music)
Hi, I'm Matt Elwell of the Elite Closing Academy.
This video is a live role play about
how you ask questions linked to pains, in particular,
that you solve in the prospecting journey.
These are not questions I'm gonna ask when I'm closing,
I'm doing it when I'm selling in the prospecting journey.
Remember, selling is asking powerful questions
linked to pains that they may have
that your products or services overcome.
And what we're gonna do, we're gonna go straight
into a role play and let me give you some context.
This is made up, so David's a business owner
and he's in denial.
Okay, so he's going, "I'm quite good at sales
"and we're closing quite good," but actually
if he ever looked at his numbers, the truth is
money's a bit tight, they're not closing
as much as they should be, remember this is all made up,
and he's in a bit of denial, "I'm good at sales,"
is the standard mindset.
So he's heard me speak an event,
he's intrigued, but he's in denial,
he's not bought the two day training initially,
and he's walked towards my stand.
I haven't gone to get him, he's come towards my stand.
But he's still in denial.
He's still like, he's a good salesman,
but he's come towards my stand.
I'm gonna demonstrate how I ask questions
around problems and pains to do with David's business.
Now, just bear in mind he's in a bit of denial,
so he's gonna be a bit abrupt,
he's gonna be initially a little bit like,
"Am I being sold to?"
This happens all the time.
So David's come towards me.
Hi, how are you doing, I'm Matt?
- I'm very good Matt.
- Wonderful, thanks so much for coming out to my stand.
What did you like about my talk?
How do you think I could possibly help you?
- Well, that what I wanted to find out.
How could you possibly help me?
- Great question, at this stage, I've no idea.
I don't know enough about your business.
So let me ask you the better question,
when it comes to your sales process
and in particular closing more deals,
what's your biggest challenge right now?
Pause.
The reason why I asked that question
is because I didn't wanna ask a general,
what's your biggest challenge in your business?
Because that's a dangerous question to me
because I'm not an expert in marketing.
I'm not an expert in YouTube.
I'm not an expert in loads of stuff, nearly everything.
What I am an expert in his closing.
So you noticed the first question I ask is called a PPQ.
It's a prospecting question with pain and it qualifies.
Okay, so I'm gonna ask it again.
Thanks for coming over David.
Let me ask you a question,
when it comes to your sales process.
And by the way, the first question I asked
was a bit general, what could I possibly do to help you?
Just to open the conversation, but the moment he answered,
now I've gotta get focused.
So I frame what I'm amazing at by asking a powerful question
that's linked to closing, which is what I do.
So that's the first part of the question
that David's asked is,
how do we ask questions linked to pain?
And this is the first thing you must do,
not ask general questions, ask honed, framed questions.
So I'm gonna go back into the role play.
Firstly, thank you so much for coming over.
When it comes to your sales process
and in particular closing deals,
what's your biggest challenge right now?
- Getting people over the line.
- Thank you, getting people over the line.
Big challenge, understand, what else?
- Getting people in the door in the first place.
- Pause, so now I have two, now just so everybody knows,
the first time somebody answers you a question like that,
they'll often have what we call a deferred truth in it.
So it will be truthful and yours was
getting people over the line, I think.
- Yeah. - So okay, thank you.
What else is such a powerful question.
(fingers snapping) Because you now
have to think, "Oh, shit, what else?"
Now, most sales people go in on the first thing.
So I'm gonna give you an example of terrible selling.
Okay, here's an example of terrible selling.
So when it comes to your sales process,
in particular closing,
what's your biggest challenge right now?
- Getting people over the line.
- Well, you see, we've got a product
about getting people over the line
and let me tell you what you get.
So you come to our two-day training
and at the two-day training we'll tell you exactly how to
get people over the line. - Okay, okay, yeah, yeah.
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's not for me.
- So this is called features and benefit sales.
And this is what people do,
the moment they get a glimmer, just a scintilla
of light, there like, "Bangs I've gotta."
And then salespeople jump all over you.
And it doesn't feel good.
And this is exactly the same.
So this why you need to be armed with, what else?
So the first answer was getting people over the line.
Thank you, I understand
that getting people over the line is a challenge.
That's me confirming that I understand, it's empathy.
Okay, empathy's good, but not too much.
It's good at this stage.
Great, what else?
- Getting leads in in the first place.
- Now, I've got two.
Now, look what I do with the two.
So firstly, thank you for giving me those two answers.
Out of getting somebody over the line
and getting leads in the first place,
out of those two, which one bothers you the most?
- Getting them over the line.
- So now, I'm gonna get this out the way
and I'm gonna focus on getting them over the line,
which interestingly is linked to closing.
So now I know that this is some kind of problem for David,
the business owner who's approached me.
Now, what I've gotta do,
before doing features of benefits on this,
I've gotta understand it.
So at this stage, I'm not looking to close David now.
I'm now looking to hone in and PUNT him.
So it's really important I just ask questions
that enable me to understand the truth.
I don't wanna use any assumption.
I don't wanna use generalization.
I don't wanna use presumption
because if I presume to know what your business
is challenged by, if I presume to know or assume
that I can answer all of your problems
without ever understanding your problems,
had you think that's gonna make you feel?
- Not good.
- The moment people try and assume or presume to know us,
that's when there's a problem.
So let's get back on it.
So again, let's throw that one away.
Thank you for sharing this.
When you say getting people over the line
is something you'd like to work on,
give me some context, how many people
are you getting over the line now?
- A good five a month.
- Five a month, great.
So this is called data, helpful data.
So five a month, what's the average sale price?
- 20 grand.
- Great, so you doing a 100 grand a month.
Well done, that's really cool.
Where would you like it to be?
- 250, 300.
- Great, so let's work on not the worst case,
let's go on 250.
So you now believe you're leaving 150 a month on the table.
- Give or take, yeah. - By not getting
them over the line.
Do you see I'm totally now understanding the problem?
Now, I've got a 150 grand a month problem,
I need to times that by 12 immediately.
So a 150 times 12, if I times it by 10 it's 1.5,
times by 12 he's leaving 1.8 million a year
by not being able to get people over the line.
Now, I haven't just told him that I've asked him about it.
And now for the first time, he's running his pattern going,
"That's a lot more than I thought."
So when he first says, "I'm leaving a 150 grand a month
"on the table," I go.
Thanks for sharing that, the truth is
that's actually 1.8 million pounds a year.
How long have you had the problem?
- The last two years.
- Okay, so now, we've got a 3.6 million pound problem.
Let me ask you a question around urgency.
How quickly would you like to
get this 3.6 million pound problem sorted?
- Well, I'm actually waiting
for a couple of deals to come through
and we actually have Brexit
and one of my biggest clients is actually
waiting for Brexit to happen
and now, we've got a delay on this again,
so I can't do anything 'til Brexit's sorted.
- I appreciate that and my concern about Brexit
is it could go on forever.
So I'm gonna chuck something in the mix.
My two day training's $497 plus VAT,
even if it just knocked 10% of that problem down,
it's the greatest decision you've ever made.
How many of your staff
do you wanna get booked on in November?
- Well, it's just me at the moment.
I wouldn't be putting anybody else on it.
- Awesome, So I don't want you to miss out
and I don't want you to have that
3.6 million pound a year problem.
My price is just for 497 plus VAT for two days.
What's the 16-digits across your card
and I'll get you booked on.
- Okay, well, yeah, I need to run this past my wife
who's the financial director.
- Great, so at this stage, he's owning that,
he's just found out the investment of money.
So I'm not expecting him to go for this now.
What I would say if I meet somebody with a problem this big,
if I let him walk away from me now with a problem that big,
I'd really feel like I wouldn't be serving in properly.
So I am, in this instance, I am gonna make sure that David's
super clear that there's an opportunity to solve this, okay.
However, if he does stick to the line
that he's I just found out my price
and he's gotta involve his other business partner,
I'm okay with that.
I'm totally okay with that, I really am.
So I'm gonna carry on.
Firstly, I wanna say thank you
for sharing everything you've shared.
Of course you've gotta speak to you business partner,
so while you're on, I'm just gonna send this to you now
and this is gonna be one page email
with a couple of visuals of my two day training.
It's gonna be called a written proposal.
Okay, what's your email address?
And I'm gonna ping this over
so that you've got all the information
and you can send it to your business partner,
get your phone out.
So now, what I'd do is I would
make David a written proposal.
Just tell me when you've got it.
- Yeah, got it.
- Yeah, great, you've got it.
He's now got a written proposal.
So he's got where it is.
What's gonna happen, how much it is, location,
everything else.
I'm asking him questions around pain and urgency.
This is his big problem.
So David now, you've got all the information.
- Yeah.
- Just help me understand,
what else would your business partner need to see
that's not on that email for her to say,
"Go for it, it's gonna be the best few hundred quid
"you've ever spent?"
- Well, you've got the dates on there,
so, price, how often do you run these?
- I run them monthly and we have a maximum of 40 seats.
So what else you need to know?
- No, that's pretty much it.
- Cool, let's get you booked on.
What can you give me now to save your space
and you can go away and speak to your business partner
and we can lock down the rest later.
- Yeah, I'd rather talk to them first.
- Great, pause.
So at this stage, we've only just met.
I've only just given him a written proposal.
Do I wanna grab hold of his throat?
Do I wanna put my foot on him?
I don't because, look, the guy's
got a 3.6 million pound a year problem
and he needs what I do.
So here's how I'm gonna leave it.
Great, so let's lock down, I believe this is urgent.
What do you think?
- Yeah, I'd like to get it handled.
- 10 is it needs to be handled immediately,
one is you don't care, what number would you give yourself?
- I would say a good eight.
- Good eight, so my concern is if you don't handle this
and it goes on for another year,
you're leaving over five million on the table.
And that's a lot of money.
So now that we know it's serious,
how long would you and your business partner need
to decide whether a few hundred quid was worth
saving you five million.
- Well, we've a meeting on Tuesday,
so anytime after Tuesday would be good.
- Great, can call you at 6:30 on the evening
or 8:15 on Wednesday morning, which one suits you best?
- Wednesday morning's better.
- Right, so I'm gonna send you a Google Calender now
to lock that in and there's a couple of the questions.
I asked you earlier,
I just wanna confirm, during that meeting,
what can I give you, other than what you've got in there,
could be some videos, what do you need from me,
so that your partner says, "Let's go."
- Well, what sort of success have you had with other people?
- What a fabulous question.
Massive success, on average,
I increase people's business by 64% in sales
over a 12-month period.
What else do you think they would need?
- How long have you been doing this?
- I believe I was born to do this
and I've been in sales since was 15.
My academy is 16 months old and my business partner's
been in this industry for 10 years.
What else do you need?
- Where could I see some testimonials
and case studies? - On my landing page.
I'm gonna send you that now.
www.eliteclosingacademy.com.
You can check that out as well.
There's some videos on there,
if you need to speak to anybody just come back to me.
My PA will hook you up, not a problem.
What else do you need?
- No, that's pretty much it, yeah.
Well, we can go over everything on Tuesday.
- Amazing, look forward to speaking to you then.
Just before you go, who else do you know right now
who needs what we do?
- There's a couple of people in mind,
but I'd rather go through it myself first so that I know.
- I'll put that on the email too.
Lovely to meet you.
- Thank you much.
- Okay, so really powerful selling is asking great questions
that are linked to pains and problems
that your service or product solves.
And that's the power of selling
and I think so many people get this wrong.
So many salespeople just talk and tell
and do features and benefits
and actually they never understand
because they never ask what the problem is there.
By the way, I actually believe that
if you had a 3.6 million pound problem for real,
I think there's a very good chance
that whilst I was answering those questions,
whilst I was prepared for you to speak to other people
that we'd have gained enough trust for you
to purchase there and then,
but here's the point, don't worry about it.
If you've got a pipeline full of people like David
who are at different stages of the prospecting cycle
that have gotta go and have a meeting,
a board of directors, speak to a business partner,
whatever it might be, as long as you're keeping
that pipeline flowing, they will pop up all the time
as, "Yeah, I've had the conversation
"with my business partner, we're in."
Bang, close, move on to the next one.
So having a fluid pipeline is critical
and what David and I have just done there
was me following my PUNT system.
Asking questions around pain, urgency, need and quantifying
via measurable amounts, problems.
So getting data that was measurable.
And once you have that, follow the system,
lockdown, having a positive clean pipeline,
it's critical to a business.
And in fact, the biggest threat to SMEs,
to experts, to investors is relying
on just one or two opportunities.
And when your pipeline dries up,
it's like being in a desert with not water.
You're gonna find a lot of problems.
So if you find during your prospecting journey
that asking powerful questions is difficult,
which it can be, I understand,
you have to do it in the right way,
with the right tonality and from a position of love.
Where you're really trying to understand pains and problems,
so that you can solve them at a later date.
If you're finding that difficult, comment in the box below,
that's what it's there for.
Let me and my team have a look and let's see
if we can put together some questions
specifically to help you and structure some questions
that enable you to get really helpful information
at the beginning of the journey,
so that later down the line the close is effortless.
So it's very simple, all you have to do is subscribe,
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and recommend other people to this training, too.