Paul Cherry is President and Founder of Performance Based Results. With over 20 years experience, he has worked with more than 1,200 organizations in every major industry and has been featured in more than 250 publications.
On this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Paul shares how we should be using questions to uncover value from our prospective customers and then leverage this to disrupt their current vendor relationships.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- Book: Questions That Sell: The Powerful Process for Discovering What Your Customer Really Wants
- PBResults.com
- Paul on Linkedin
Transcript
Paul Cherry:
Are we differentiating ourselves in the marketplace when we’re asking similar same questions that every sales professional in our industry is asking? The reality is we become a Me Too. Then we dabble a little bit into the goals. What are your goals? Okay. What are you looking to accomplish? That’s about seven to 8% into the future and then maybe one or 2% of the questions that we ask will go into the past. And it’s something as basic as, “Hey, well, how was your weekend?”
Will Barron:
Hello, Sales Nation I’m Will Barron host of the Salesman Podcast. The world’s biggest B2B sales show, where we help you, not just hit your sales target, but really thrive in sales and with that, let’s meet today’s guest.
Paul Cherry:
Good morning. My name is Paul Cherry. I’m president and founder of Performance Based Results. My key is all about how do we ask the right questions to achieve the right outcomes.
Intriguing Questions That Uncover The Buyer’s Real Needs · [01:08]
Will Barron:
On today’s episode of Paul we’re diving into the questions that we need to ask to uncover the real buyer needs and this is from someone who’s perhaps a little bit reluctant as well to deal with us in the first place. And also what questions we can ask to really disrupt a current relationship that one of our competitors may have in an account that we want to take over. So with that said, let’s jump right in. We’re going to try and cover if we possibly can with time restraints two topics today, how to uncover what the buyer really wants and then how to untrench perhaps trenched in competitors that we’ve got in the space. But I want to start with, are there any unusual questions? Are there any uncommon questions that we should be asking our potential customers to find out what the real buyer needs are?
Paul Cherry:
Great question Will and my research in terms of questioning skills, what I’ve discovered is that about 87% of the questions that salespeople ask, and I’m talking about the seasoned experience, salespeople in the business-to-business arena, selling complex ideas and solutions, multiple in people that we have to engage with. And what I mean is, who you using now? What do you like? What don’t you like? What are you paying? How’s our service? What are your needs? And then we dabble a little bit into the goals. What are your goals? Okay. What are you looking to accomplish? That’s about seven to 8% into the future and then maybe one or 2% of the questions that we ask will go into the past. It’s something as basic as hey, Will, how was your weekend?
“Are we differentiating ourselves in the marketplace when we’re asking similar questions that every sales professional in our industry is asking. And the reality is we become a Me Too.” – Paul Cherry · [02:40]
Paul Cherry:
And it’s like, ugh, here’s where I’m going with that is that the majority that we questions that we ask they’re… I don’t want to downplay them. There’s a purpose in understanding the facts, the needs, the wants, what somebody’s paying the budget decision-making process, and timing to make a decision. That’s all-important, but are we differentiating ourselves in the marketplace when we’re asking similar same questions that every sales professional in our industry is asking. And the reality is we become a Me Too. And we put our sales, our customers to sleep. We annoy them, we interrogate them, or whatever. So what I recommend is to really shift the gears is that spend a little bit more time into the future and into the past, and especially into the past. Why? Because rarely if ever salespeople go there. Why? And that’s because they think, well, the history is dead.
Paul Cherry:
There’s no money in the past. Everything that you want to know to sell into the future is where? In the past. And for example, it’s just asking some similar questions. Tell me a little bit about your background. Tell me about your experiences in the past. What’s worked in the past, what hasn’t worked. If there’s some things that you would change, what might they be? And then I catapult that into the future. As you look to the future, whether it’s tomorrow, next week, or next year, what do you see different on the horizon that you’re looking to accomplish? See what I mean? It’s nothing complex, but I’ve done this training and coaching with clients. I see that. I don’t care whether you’re one month on in the sales job or 25 years when I ask people, get in your groups and give me a random sample of your top 10 questions that you ask, boom, it’s the same.
Structure to Building a Series of Questions That Spark the Buyer’s Curiosity · [04:13]
Will Barron:
It seems like Paul, these questions are questions that make someone go, huh? And then think about something and then answer after processing. Are there any questions we should be asking that stand out that do that every single time across the board? Are there any structures to building up a series of questions that enable us to make someone go uh and scratch their head as they think about the answer?
Paul Cherry:
I love where you’re going with that Will and thank you. It’s what I call the power probing question. So, and I want to salespeople got to be careful because I don’t want them to get deep into mechanics of the question. But if you look at the most common questions that we ask, they begin with the five Ws, the who’s, the what’s, the where’s, the when’s, the why’s, and the how’s and I get it. I ask a lot of them myself because they’re very casual. They’re conversational and I want people to feel comfortable, but a way to shift that gear just a little bit and that is to start with a descriptive opener. For example, something as simple as the question so Will, are you the decision-maker? Think about that question. Are you the decision-maker? Is that an important question to ask?
Paul Cherry:
And the answer is, well, yeah, because we want to know, is, are we talking to the right person? Is there a risk in asking that question? Are you the decision-maker? And what do you think it is? Yeah. Because it’s kind of like, I might be belittling you or not making you feel important or it might cause you, prompt you to not be honest with me. How would I salvage that question with a descriptive opener, such as describe for me? Okay. Think about it just by, are you the decision-maker? I would change it to describe for me your decision-making process. See that the difference from are you closed-ended to automatically it becomes open-ended. And it invites other questions involved in terms of how the decisions are made, who would be involved and the timing involved, and the priority.
Paul Cherry:
I’m getting it more engaging. That’s all. Now, so descriptive openers would be described tell me, share with me, walk me through, help me understand, clarify, expand upon. You got a lot of choices there. So I will use them on occasion, especially with somebody who’s a little guarded, protective, defensive, or a little standoffish that can help to pull people into the conversation. Another thing that I use that I recommend that salespeople can use because I go back to what you and I were asking about a lot of 87% of the questions are in the present. So you’ll hear me use things like time comparisons because they’re very casual and conversational and it might go something like this Will. So Will, let’s talk about some of the things that you’re looking to accomplish. So tell me about your needs next year.
Paul Cherry:
Tell me about some of the things that you’re looking to accomplish next year? Feedback, dialogue. How’s that compared to this year, see? Or how’s that compared to last year? You see the reflective. So to answer your question, yeah, to get people to kind of think. Step back and assess and evaluate big picture. Because too often salespeople get into the weeds. What are you using now? What do you like? What are you paying? If I could show you away, would you be interested? You see what I mean? Two products get at 10,000 feet, start there and then dive down, not start at 500 feet, and try to dig yourself out of the mud. It’s hard. See what I mean?
The Most Impactful Way to Start a Sales Meeting · [07:31]
Will Barron:
Yeah. This makes total sense. I love this. Describe for me. I’ve jotted this down because I’ve got a sales call straight after this Paul and I’ll be using that myself. Should the sales caller first meeting should it always start with these uh, you might have way of describing them other than, because this sounds ridiculous the more and more I say it. But uh kind of confusing make think questions. Should they always start with that and then perhaps wind up with the specifics and close-ended questions to direct people towards one way or another or is there a cadence to asking questions to get the most out of the time we have with someone in a call or on a meeting?
“You want to make a great impression with somebody? Guess what? Ask a great question.” – Paul Cherry · [08:42]
Paul Cherry:
Well, Will, I love your question. So there’s an ice break of rapport. So we don’t want to hammer somebody with a power probing question on the first call because it’s like let’s build a little rapport and get to know each other. Now that depends and that might be 20 seconds and they’re on occasion where you might spend 10 minutes. So one uses discretion. However, I think that we too often salespeople get bogged down on the rapport stage, meaning they want to create all this likability. I want you to like me. I want you to feel comfortable with me. I want you to ensure that I’m credible, all this stuff. And it’s like, okay, you’re wasting a lot of time. You want to make a great impression with somebody? Guess what? Ask a great question.
Paul Cherry:
You know what I mean? And it might go something like this. I’ll give you an example because I’m working in the medical industry and one area that this company, it’s a fortune 500 company, very reputable, but like everyone, they’re trying to dig deeper, broader, and higher to get into new relationships. And one of the ways to really stimulate and engage the conversation is, hey, Will, in preparation for my call I’d like to share with you know what we’re seeing in the industry. On the one hand, we’re seeing these kind of challenges going on. On the flip side, we’re seeing the opposite. We’re seeing this. I’m curious, based on your experience and what you’re doing, what are you seeing? What are you doing? You see what I mean? So I’ll leverage in the rapport stage insight in terms of what’s going on with their peer’s cohorts in the industry.
Paul Cherry:
I’d like to get your perspective. So what I’m doing is I’m inviting your opinions, your thoughts, your emotions to challenge and engage. See how I can do so we can do a power probing question at the very beginning. So we don’t spin wheels and waste a lot of time because you know what the risk is if I start hammering you with what I call some basic interrogation, situational, ho-hum questions, in the beginning, you can see the eyes glassy in the next three to four minutes. All of a sudden, you’re waiting to ask that power probing question. You lost it because the person’s like, you know what? I’m really busy. And I haven’t got a lot of time. Show me what you got. And that’s the kiss of sales death when somebody says that. It’s a very polite way of, I’m looking to get rid of you. I’ll give you 60 seconds, shoot, bull. And then it’s like, okay, let me think it over, chew it over and you know what? Get back to me in a few months and we’ll think about it-
Power Probing Questions and Why They’re Very Effective · [10:33]
Will Barron:
How strategic hey Paul, do we need to be with these questions? With your example, they’re using one end of an industry and the other end of an industry and then getting so on to position themselves within it. Are we being super strategic about, we know where they are, so we add more pain on one side and reduce the upside of the other to get them to leverage themselves or describe themselves as being in a specific place or can we be more flippant about this? And it’s more the question itself that has the value versus how we pigeonhole them within it. If that makes sense.
Paul Cherry:
Oh yeah. So on the one hand you can, if somebody’s going to be a fence sitter, you really they’d have to take a position. The one thing is nice about this is you can be very controversial without putting yourself at risk because all I’m asking to do is to take a position, to get their thoughts and perspectives. Because the last thing I want to do is to say, “Let me tell you about who we are and what we can do, and how we can help you.” Only to find out on my sales pitch two minutes later, they say, “Well, we’ve already tried that doesn’t work.” See what I mean? So I never want to pigeonhole myself with that. Okay. You raised a very important point though, so I don’t the strategic questions, power probing questions. People ask me, how many do we ask? I don’t want to be staying at 10,000 feet because you brought up a good point and that is I want to steer, guide, direct, and pull people in.
Paul Cherry:
Here’s what’s going on there’s a study done by Dartnell Research Institute and this was a study done years ago. And that is the question was asking in all industries, the percentage of time that customers, “customers”, people who were already doing business with that are telling you exactly what is on their minds. Do you think that’s high or low? And the answer is it’s low. The percentage of time they’re telling us what’s on their minds is low. They’re only telling you about 20% of the time what’s and as people I challenge people, why? Here we have relationships with people. Why aren’t they disclosing and sharing their thoughts? Their perspectives, challenges, needs, wants, and desires, and hopes. And for a host of reasons, there is afraid of confrontation, afraid of hurting your feelings, I like you, maybe a negotiating ploy, or maybe it’s a lack of trust, confidence. So what I’m saying is if they’re not telling you what is on their minds, our job is…
“If you don’t trust me, if you don’t have confidence in me, I’m not going to sell you. Why? Because you’re not even going to listen to me.” – Paul Cherry · [13:13]
Paul Cherry:
And can you imagine if we’re dealing with prospects now, ugh, it’s even worse? So that’s why I’m really big. The art of engagement is that I need to connect. I need to get to the truth. I need to understand what customers value. So I’m really big on questioning skills because I want to know is do you trust? If you don’t trust me, if you don’t have confidence in me, I’m not going to sell you. Why? Because you’re not even going to listen to me. Okay. And that’s where Dartnell took it further and said 20% of the time customers are actively listening. And the challenge is salespeople they hear a glimmer of opportunity.
Paul Cherry:
What they think might be a buying signal. What do you do? Because they deal with rejection, negativity all the time. They want to pounce and sell and I’m all for selling if the customer’s listening and open and receptive to change. So to get to your point, we get into this other type of questioning skills which is tactical. So I move beyond the power probing questions, the descriptive openers, and getting into the future and the past, because I want to get into specifically, tell me, what is it you’re saying? More importantly, tell me what is it you’re not saying ah, and what’s the motivation? Okay. Because when emotions and logic cross typically Will, which one rules? Emotions.
Will Barron:
Emotion. Yeah.
Paul Cherry:
Emotions. Yeah. So I want to get to the emotions and that’s where I get very tactical just listening for the clues. Okay. What people are telling me, what are they hinting to me? Okay. Would you like to know examples? Would that help?
The Litmus Test of a Great Sales Call · [14:30]
Will Barron:
I want to stop here because you just said about 15 things that I want to run through and I don’t want to lose the train of thought here. How do we ask someone, Paul? How do we ask someone what aren’t they telling us kind of subtly and succinctly? Because I guess if we’ve got a good relationship with them, we can just jump straight in with that question and they’ll go, oh yeah well, now you mention it. I’ve not said this, this, and this and this. But with someone new and perhaps if they’re holding a little bit back, what questions can we ask them to uncover some of this extra layer of data that we need to be able to help them?
“Here’s the litmus test of a good sales call: who did most of the talking? If the salesperson did most of the talking, it was not a good sales call. If the customer did most of the talking, great sales call.” – Paul Cherry · [15:01]
Paul Cherry:
Here’s the litmus test of a good sales call and that is who did most of the talking. If the salesperson did most of the talking, it was not a good sales call. If the customer did most of the talking great sales call. Many times we can get into what I call prompters and Will it’s something as simple as, hmm, really? Can you tell me more? Can you expand upon that? Sometimes just being inquisitive or actually being very humble, humility because we want to too often we want to impress customers with our knowledge, our experience and that we can be problem solver, solution providers. The paradigm shift is as we get more experienced, we lose that ability to be inquisitive. So my job is to be inquisitive and I do it from a questioning standpoint. I do it with when somebody is giving me clues. So it could be something of like, I’ll give you an example, Paul, one of the things we’re looking at some ways to better grow our business, something as simple as that, we’re looking at some ways to better grow our business.
Paul Cherry:
Now the wrong way to handle that Will would be for me to jump in and say so I can help you. Let me tell you what I can do our experience and how we can help you do that. That’s just closing the opportunity. Whereas what I mean by that example of being humble and inquisitive is saying, “Will, you mention you’re looking, tell me more. Tell me about the criteria that’s important to you. What have you looked at so far? What have you seen? What’s the ideal outcome you’re looking?” So it’s going to prompt questions. See, from a tactical standpoint, I want to really dive deeper to get to… So I’m not going to tell you how I can help you until you lay it out what’s important to you. Makes sense.
Will Barron:
That makes total sense.
Paul Cherry:
Yes.
How to Know If Your Prospect is Actively Listening to You · [16:50]
Will Barron:
Perfect. Okay. Then as I said, there’s a few things I want to run through here because you just thrown so much value into this. Next one is, and this may seem, there might be a really obvious answer to this, but other than someone you’re in a business meeting with them and they’re on the phone and not really paying attention to you, how do we know when someone is actively listening to us? Perhaps even on the phone would be a better example. How do we know when someone is actively listening to us? And what do we do perhaps on the phone when we know that they’re not really listening? We can hear tapping in the background and they’re on the keyboard, doing their emails. Is there any way we can grab their attention or is this an excuse just to go, okay, I’ll call you back tomorrow? Something like that.
“The more we start talking, the more we push people away. Salespeople are guilty of this because salespeople too love to hear themselves talk. Let’s give our customer the platform. It’s important. That’s going to be key.” – Paul Cherry · [17:58]
Paul Cherry:
Yeah. I mean, if you’re hearing, yes and that’s right. The customer is typically multitasking there. That’s where questioning skills become even more important. So my recommendation is, and it’s a give and take. Conversations are give and take, share an idea or perspective, and it might be 30 seconds to explain and then to be able to come back and say, “Well, so Will tell me a little bit about your perspective, how that might help you.” So what I’m trying to do is because the customer gets back to 20% of the time they’re actively listening. I want to engage you to have 100% listening. Customers love to talk. They love to hear their perspectives. They’re verbalising, they’re expressing their ideas, [inaudible 00:18:05] and thoughts. And that’s why it’s important to get to their emotional layers. Needs, right? The more we start talking, the more we push people away. Salespeople are guilty of this because salespeople too love to hear themselves talk. Let’s give our customer the platform. It’s important. That’s going to be key.
How to Stay in Control of the Sales Conversation Without Excessively Dominating the Buyer · [18:25]
Will Barron:
I love this Paul. I don’t want to kind of just gloss over that. You said something that’s, I’ve never thought about saying perhaps you do it conversationally, but how might that help you? If you just explain something and you’re doing it from, perhaps tell me if I’m wrong here, but you’re doing it from a position of, you’re not trying to trip them up. It’s not like when you do a presentation or your sales manager’s presenting, and then you go, what did I just say? It’s not a case of that. It’s a case of getting them to visualise what you’ve just dictated to or shared with them, future pace it, and then report back to you on whether this could be helpful or not. I think that’s really powerful.
“The salesperson has to be in control of the sales conversation. However, the customer has to feel and has to be empowered to be in control. They feel in control when they’re expressive and sharing the ideas, needs, wants, and so forth.” – Paul Cherry · [19:28]
Paul Cherry:
Yes. And it’s because if you watch salespeople have been trained on feature benefit selling, let me tell you about the feature and how it’s going to help you. But they too often, 50% of the time they go too long-winded. Okay. It’s supposed to be 30 seconds, but then it becomes three minutes and then number two, then they don’t come back with a question. They kind of shut up and they’re like, okay, Will, would you like to ask me another question? And then it also like now the customer has full control. See, and I think two things salesperson has to be in control. However, the customer has to feel, has to be empowered to be in control. They feel in control when they’re expressive and then sharing the ideas needs, wants, and so forth. So it has to be a win-win.
Will Barron:
Perfect. And-
Paul Cherry:
Especially on the phone.
Understanding the Three Levels of Questions · [19:50]
Will Barron:
Definitely. And the final thing that you on your rapid pace example before Paul that came to mind was you half described someone who’s perhaps I think used the word reluctant, or they sat back in their seat and perhaps they’re listening, but they’re not opening up to you. Are there any examples of questions or a series of questions or a structure to a conversation that we can have with an individual who is perhaps reluctant, perhaps that we haven’t built that trust? We haven’t built that rapport with them yet. Is there any way we can open them up by giving them value, leading questions?
Paul Cherry:
Yeah. So I’m always, and I’ll say this really succinctly as I engage somebody, I look for three levels of interest. It’s called the should stage, want to stage, have to stage. Should stage means you engage somebody, you’re asking hey, I’m asking all these great questions, but you’re not opening up. It means that there’s no desire, motivation, or interest. They are fully in a complacent mode. The reality is move on or find somebody who’s more interested. You’re just at that moment. It’s not a good opportunity. Invest your time better wisely with somebody else. Want to stages, there’s receptivity. There’s openness. There’s a need. So what happens is salespeople when they find somebody at a want to stage, remember I said about pouncing, selling, trying to close the problem with the want to stage is, oh, I’d really like, this Will, this is great.
Paul Cherry:
This is exactly what we need. Oh my goodness. I can imagine and then they inflect the word, but, or however. Which means not right now, no money in the budget, maybe next year or when the time is right we are going to give you a call. What I want to do is take people to the have-to stage where the recognition for change embracing change outweighs that desire for complacency. So I need to understand that pain or problem. So what I try to do is I’m looking for, without being manipulative here, though. Again, being inquisitive when somebody starts to express that there’s a problem or concern or issue, is that, tell me more about that problem. How long has this been going on? What do you think’s been causing this problem? Tell me, Will, what is it? And then I get one I know about cost.
Paul Cherry:
What’s it costing you in terms of time, people, resources, opportunity? Then my last question is implication question is, well, Will, what if you don’t address this issue? I’m curious what if you don’t address this issue, what might be the impact on you and your business? So that question impact implication. If you do nothing if you don’t address the issue, how might this affect you and your business their answer will tell you or me whether in the should, want to, or a have to stage. When they are in the have-to stage, oh, you kidding me if we don’t address this issue, it’s going to cost us this, people, resources, opportunity. The competition is going to eat us alive. It could put us out of business. Boom, you’ve gotten the green light to do what? Sell. So that’s what I look for. I’m always looking at when the customer is in that have to stage. Let’s get real. Is everybody in that? No. Very few. But I’m looking for people in the want to stage take them to the have to stage. Does that make sense?
Ways to Salvage a Conversation That’s Falling Apart · [23:10]
Will Barron:
That makes total sense. This is brilliant. And before we move on to perhaps I feel like I should be whispering this disrupting our competitors’ business relationships before we move on to that, a question that came to mind here of there anyways, and perhaps a personal example would be fantastic to demonstrate this, but are there any ways we can use questions to dig ourselves out of a situation because I’m sure I’m not the only salesperson who’s listening to this right now. Oh, part of this conversation that has been on a phone call, been in a meeting, shit’s hit the fan we said the wrong thing, we’ve inadvertently got someone’s backs up. Again, a personal example would be amazing if you’ve got one, but is there any way that we can use questions to dig ourselves out of a hole?
Paul Cherry:
And you mean like a customer service problem that happened or we made a fool of ourselves?
Will Barron:
I mean, me working in medical device sales, I’ve looked like a dickhead in front of many surgeons by saying the wrong thing. Promising something by mistake, not doing it trying to manipulate anyone or trying to harm anyone or harm a relationship, but yeah, I’ve screwed up loads of times. It seems like what we’ve been through so far there must be a way of asking questions to turn this on its head.
Paul Cherry:
Yeah. And we’ve all heard the expression. And I talk about Columbo, the member of the famous TV personality back in the 70s the show, the detective and how Lieutenant Columbo would bumble through the questions. I think that there’s believe it or not, I’m not all about asking sophisticated thought-provoking questions, but I think that in again, humility and you mentioned about surgeons when you mention about people with egos who take great pride in their experience, their knowledge, their intelligence, and who they are. I think by showing respect and that we do value the opinions of others yet at the same time, on other perspective is being an equal to them. So to dig ourselves out of the hole there really is the perspective is that is here’s an example. I’ll give you one.
Paul Cherry:
Because the salesperson just asked me this yesterday. And it was the customer said, “You know what. Hey, we looked at everything and in fairness, we look at the pricing of your competitor versus yours. We just really don’t see any value.” And he’s frustrated the salesperson. He goes because we can respond that very same day yet the competitor they want to consider is a three-day response. And he’s like, “What do I do? They’re commoditizing us even don’t seem to understand the value. How do you dig yourself out of the hole?”
Paul Cherry:
And I said, “Here’s what you need to ask this question and it goes something like this Will, so tell me, what is it that I’m failing to understand, to address what’s most important to you and your organisation?” See. Or what’s important to you and your people or you and your customers. So what’s embedded in there is that I’m taking it upon myself, help me out here. I’m what is it I’m failing to understand. Educate me. Because again, I’m trying to get to, you’re holding back something. You’re not telling me. Let’s get to the truth. See [inaudible 00:26:04] that’s a way of digging out of the hole because if we can get to the truth, that’s half the battle to making the sale.
How to Disrupt Your Competitor’s Relationships · [26:20]
Will Barron:
For sure. It definitely is. That is a perfect question. That perhaps is one to scribble down Sales Nation because that would’ve got me out of some holes I’m sure. But yeah moving on to kind of we want to wrap up the show here, Paul, and disrupting competitive relationships. And I don’t mean this from a malicious standpoint. I mean, you tell me if I’m wrong, maybe we should be aggressive about it.
Will Barron:
But when I say that, I feel we’re looking for, if the competitor relationship is a chair, we’re looking for that wobbly leg that perhaps we can leverage or bring up and discuss and just rock that relationship a little bit. I guess this comes up in conversations where we ring up, we go into the meeting, there’s something there because they’ve had a meet with us. They’ve accepted us going on their diary. So there’s something there to go at but we ring up, we go into the meeting and they say, “Hey, it sounds fantastic. But your competitor is doing great for us right now.” How do we get around that and how do we uncover any holes in the relationship that our competitors currently have with our potential customers?
Paul Cherry:
Yes, yes, no, it’s a great one. And here’s a classic example of what goes on. Just like you said, salesperson calls up, engages, or face to face, and the questions come up. So who are you using now? What do you like about them? What don’t you like? If there’s one thing you’d change, what might it be? And what happens is these kind of questions will typically force that customer or prospect, that is to say, well, we’re really happy. We’re really content right now. Leave me your product literature, whatever, or stay in touch. Maybe next year we might consider you. And the reality is probably nothing’s going to happen and you’re right. I want to create a crevice. Okay. A wedge. So rather than getting it, and these are getting back to these questions that just push people away versus pulling people in.
Paul Cherry:
What I want to know is my recommendation is don’t get into the vent, the competitor. Likes and dislikes. What I want you to focus in on are questions like this is, tell me a little about some of the changes that you’re experiencing in your industry. Tell me about some of the changes you’re experiencing in your company. Tell me some of the changes you’re experiencing on the job. Here’s what I call the catalyst. The question on change because the reality is when you ask people changes for you, changes for me, changes for everyone. When we ask, are you experiencing any change? Automatically what do people say? Yes, a lot of change. And what I’m doing is I’m trying to trigger something emotions. So I want them thinking about changes and how they’re dealing with change. What are some of the changes going on?
Paul Cherry:
And what happens is I want to stretch a person’s mindset, start to be thinking, thinking, thinking about changes. And one of the changes is let’s go back when you originally went with this supplier and it might be one, you know those, oh, we’ve been using this supplier for the last 20 years. You know what I mean? I’m like, ah, please, ah, gag.
Paul Cherry:
I go, one of the questions you’ll hear me ask is, well, let’s go back to when you originally went with this supplier, help me understand the criteria that was important to you, your needs back then. And then the follow-up question is dialogue, feedback. What’s changed since then? See what I mean? Let me get them talking more. Then as you look to the future, what changes do you see going on in the horizon? So it’s not about the supplier. It’s all about the bigger changes and what I’m trying to do is disrupting, get them to think about is there are obviously some things that are going to surface where the current supplier’s not meeting those needs. I need to find that opportunity where it’s not being met so that I can sell to that particular need. That’s all and exploit it. Does that make sense?
Questions That Help Uncover Where Your Competition is Falling Short · [30:05]
Will Barron:
That makes total sense. What are a few example questions that we can ask? Because I know damn well, there’s going to be people scribbling down every other thing that we mention in this episode, Paul. So to wrap up things here, what are questions that we should overtly ask if there’s a structure to them, to once we get past this? Well, perhaps our current supplier is, they’re not perfect. They’re falling on this. They’re not delivering as promptly. The price has gone up over time. What are a few questions that we could ask to uncover some of these, I guess, discrepancies from what they originally promised to the change, to where they are now?
Paul Cherry:
So I have a client who was talking about engaging about it, turned out the people process. So it was manufacturing and what it was uncovered is with the current supplier was not able to meet turnaround time. There was quality issues what surfaced. So what they were able to explore was asking the questions, tell me a little bit about where this is impacting you and your business when you’re not having this service provided within a 24-hour window. Then the questions was asking what is costing you in terms of resources, opportunity? What happened was they weren’t able to meet customer expectations and then it turned out there was a threat of a customer pulling the plug and the question came up as how much does this customer worth to your business? And it turned out this was $150,000 customer.
Paul Cherry:
So they found out that there was three other customers are affected. Problem was now there’s just all $400,000 opportunity. That question was so help me understand that the concerns are, if the things continue this way, how might the consequences or risks on your business moving forward? And that’s where it created that discomfort to say is, you know what? I got my boss breathing down my back questioning, why are we doing this? So what we found out was just not the vendor, not meeting expectations, but now the decision-making process, there was other people internally, the internal customer that was not satisfied, putting pressure on this person, this contact that they had to create change, drive change. So where I’m going at is I want to be able to find out what changes are going on.
Paul Cherry:
I want to understand the people that are involved with it. Number three is I want to know the buying criteria. What is it they value? See. So a lot of times when people talk about, oh, we’re happy. We’re content. The price is good, but I really want to know is putting price aside is let’s talk about what value means to you. I find that’s such a powerful question because people will talk about things such as service, quality, durability, outcome, performance, results. And they give me the criteria. And that allows me to say as well, let’s talk about those areas. And I get tactical quality. Since you mentioned the word quality, let’s talk about where quality that hasn’t been meeting your expectations recently because when they give you a word, they give usually there’s history behind that. Why that’s not being met. See. See the tactics behind that. That’s very powerful that to help people listen for the clues, what people are telling you, and then expand upon that to take that further.
Paul’s Process For Having an Impactful Discovery Call · [33:05]
Will Barron:
I’ve got two things I want to wrap up show with. The first one, when you are having this conversation, when you’re having this sales conversation, what does your I assume you are jotting things down as you go through it. Paul, what does your notepad look like? Are you listening out for those keywords, scribbling the word down, and then reminding yourself to follow up and then going with the pain points alongside it? What does the page look like when you are going through a discovery call like this?
Paul Cherry:
That’s right. So down, I write because I can remember when I’m writing and people Will, what happens is customers are like a dog on a bone. They’re going to chew on something, an issue. So they’re going to keep hinting at an issue because they’re going to go around in circles. So yeah, we’ve had some concerns, we’ve been struggling with. It’s been a real frustration. One of the pain points we’ve had. See what I mean? They keep feeding the keyword. So that’s right to have control of the conversation is I need to manage that conversation knowing that I may not pounce on that word immediately. Hey, you mentioned the word struggling. Can you tell me more? But I’m going to come back to that two, three, four, five minutes later. So I’ll write down that word and then go back to that because I want to go to that emotional driver. What’s underneath that word that’s creating those issues? See there’s a lot of hidden meaning behind that so what my notepad would look like-
Will Barron:
Do you purposefully leave it a few minutes and then come back to it or do you get it dive straight in, get it dive straight in. Is there a reason why you’d kind of leave it a little bit? I guess you could raise the tension or difficult questions, easy questions, difficult questions. Is there a strategy for when you would come back to that important point?
Paul Cherry:
And it depends on the customer. Some customers, a little cautious, close-minded reserved or patient, or methodical. And like peeling the onion I got to go slow. Other customers where it’s like, here’s my pain. Let me tell you all that. And then it’s like, I get the knife out and I open it up and need to look inside. So it really does depend, but there is such what happens is because I’m real big believer in getting customers to open up the psychology of the sales process. It’s a therapy process really it is. I mean, to really understand. So I got to bring those pain points to the surface and diagnose it. Ideally Will I want to get to the issues immediately if I can. Absolutely. But sometimes you have somebody really talking three minutes straight and all of a sudden they’re pummeling me with all these emotional words and becomes a smorgasbord of which one do I choose first? You see what I mean? It depends.
Paul’s Advice to His Younger Self on How to Become Better at Selling · [35:44]
Will Barron:
Perfect. It depends is the answer to all of my questions, which I don’t know whether they’re good questions or they’re totally unsuccinct and so it comes back to that. I guess maybe that’s just the nature of sales. With that Paul, I’ve got one final question for you, mate. I’ve not asked this in a while. So regular listeners all know that I’ve not asked this in about six months’ time, but I’m bringing this question back. So your answer can’t be anything to do with questions or question-based selling or anything like that. If you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, what would be the one piece of advice you’d give him to help him become better at selling?
Paul Cherry:
It is just be a sponge for learning. That is going to be key and that is because the access of information that is available today, whether it’s books, the internet, peers, cohorts, put our ego aside, listen and learn. That’s going to be key the driver point. So that would be my message. The one thing that I would change devour more to accelerate our career process, our success.
Parting Thoughts · [36:30]
Will Barron:
Perfect. Well with that, Paul, tell us where we can find your current book, which is coming in second edition, and your brand new book, which won’t be out for a few weeks after this episode airs. But I want to plug that up for you as well and then where we can find out more about you, sir.
Paul Cherry:
Okay. Go to PBresults.com or Paul Cherry, one word Paul Cherry cherry like the fruit dom com. And I suggest you access my free resources, specifically the 75 best questions to close more business. That’s our research of going out on more than 1000 sales calls and also a compilation from my book Questions that Sell the best of the best questions to ask. It’s a great coaching tool, research tool, resource tool that you can use in the field when you’re engaging customers. Okay.
Will Barron:
And plug your new book that’s coming out as well.
Paul Cherry:
Yes. The Ultimate Sales Pro that’s going to be coming out August that next month. I’m excited it’s about the 25 most innovative thought-provoking ideas for salespeople that are really good at what they’re doing but want to be at the top of their game. So what are the things that you need to do? It’s to challenge your mindset, our paradigms, step outside of our comfort zone. Why? So we can achieve the success that we truly deserve? So I’m excited about that.
Will Barron:
Yeah. I’m excited as well and we’ll link to all that, the new book, the old book, everything else in the [inaudible 00:37:55] to this episode over at salesman.org. With that Paul, I want to thank you for your time, mate. I really enjoyed this episode. Really enjoyed recording with you and yeah, I appreciate your time, mate. Thanks for coming on the show.
Paul Cherry:
Thank you, Will. Okay. My pleasure.
