“Will you marry me?” is the most powerful engagement question in the world. The answer is a commitment. Engagement with the customer is no different.
The purpose of “engagement” in sales is to involve a prospect in a way that he or she is interested enough to think about you in a positive way, trust you and what you’re saying, want to buy, and engage in some form of relationship. Engagement is achieved through questions.
Your initial approach to the relationship determines if you will ever get a chance to ‘pop the question.” If your initial approach is phony. Example of social phony: Don’t I know you from someplace?” or “What’s a pretty little thing like you doing here?” Example of business phony: “Are you interested in saving some money?” or “What would it take to get your business?” You are dead before you start. The prospect is thinking “NO” from the first five seconds.
The prospect may be polite on the outside but they have checked you off mentally, and will say anything to get rid of you, and never call you back. Sound familiar?
THE SITUATION: Relationship Courting has before, during, and after steps. Some are diversions, some are delays, some are obstacles, some are wonderful, some are bad. All are choices you make by the way you “engage”, followed by prospect reactions to your words and deeds.
THE GAME PLAN: The assumptive (self-confident) approach works the best: be attractive, polished, approachable, humble, well mannered, and PREPARED. Make people want to get to know you, want to talk to you, want to be approached by you, want to be engaged by you. Assume it’s yours and you’ll get it more often.
THE OBJECT: Gain interest with a question of engagement. “Will you marry me?” is a question that will engage you in more ways than one. First, it is an emotional question. Second, it’s a thought-provoking question. Third, it’s a question about YOU that makes you answer in terms of ME. In short, an engagement question.
THE REAL WORLD EXAMPLES:
To sell life insurance or investments: How much money will it take you to retire? How much of that do you have right now?
To sell telephone services: How is your present carrier teaching you to use your phone in a more productive manner?
To sell temporary employment services: When your receptionist calls in sick on Monday, how do you ensure that there is great morale, full productivity, and no loss of service to your customers?
To sell accounting services: If you were paying 20% more in taxes than you had to, how would you know it?
Those are powerful questions of engagement.
Questions you ask about the other person that makes them stop and think, and answer in terms of you…
Questions to uncover wants, needs and desires.
Questions to uncover real feelings.
Questions to reveal dreams.
Questions that uncover problems, past experiences.
Questions that boost ego and make the other person feel good or proud.
Questions that uncover truths or motives.
Questions that gain commitment.
Questions to help you better understand them and their situation.
Questions that get a response beyond a simple “yes” or “no.”
If you are asking someone out on a date, asking to borrow a cup of sugar, asking for the sale, or asking for a hand in marriage, the key word is ASKING. And the WAY you ask can be the difference between good response and bad response, smart response and dumb response, yes response and no response.
Notice I did not ask questions to “find the pain.” That is a 1970s outdated manipulative selling process. My pain is basically none of your business. Where I hurt is my business not yours. If I choose to tell you, that’s my prerogative, but it is not your prerogative to ask me about my pain. EVER.
ENTER AI. The key to artificial intelligence mastery (and take away AI mystery) is the ability to ask it – or better said, ask GitomerSales.AI effective questions. The quality and precision of the questions you ask my AI proprietary platform directly influence how relevant, powerful, engaging (pain free) and useful the answers you receive will be.
In my AI, you choose who to question and you choose what you put in your questions. That will often (not always) determine the answer. There’s an old sales adage that says, “If you’re not prepared for the answer, don’t ask the question.” There’s another one that says, “If you ask, they buy. If you tell, they avoid.”
In sales, you become known by the questions you ask. If you ask smart questions, they think you’re smart. If you ask dumb questions…
Want to get my AI? Go to GitomerSales.AI and get a demo or just sign up and subscribe. It’s the future.
FREE GitBit… Want a few real smart questions? Well, since everyone sells something different, I’ll give you the lead-ins to the questions and you adapt it to whatever you sell. Fair enough? Just go to www.gitomer.com, click Access GitBit, register and enter the words, SMART QUESTIONS in the search box.
