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  • Hey guys, this is Steli Efti with Close.io. I want to talk about the art of asking powerful

  • questions and actually getting real answers to those questions. A lot of times when you

  • qualify a prospect, you have to ask a bunch of questions to truly understand who they

  • are and if they're a good fit and how to sell to them effectively. Many times when

  • I teach that asking questions is the most important skill in sales, people tell me,

  • Yes Steli but people get annoyed when you ask them too many questions.”

  • I get this all the time where people just, “How can I ask questions without annoying

  • people, without getting to kind of a conversational dynamic that's not natural anymore and without

  • having the prospect actually raise up their defenses and their mental blocks because they're

  • feeling like they're being attacked by all these questions?” First, how to not ask

  • questions correctly and then get these kind of outcomes.

  • Too many times I see people asking questions to prospects as if they're reading it off

  • a list. As if it's irrelevant, what the answer is every question seems to just get

  • a checkpoint from the person asking it to get to the next question. You get people going,

  • Dear prospect, tell me, how many people in your company would use our product?”

  • the prospect goes, “I don't know really maybe about five to 10 people.”

  • Tell me, what kind of features are the most important ones for you?” “For us

  • it's really important that it has feature X, Y and Z.” “Cool, yeah we do provide

  • all these features.” “Dear prospect let me ask you another question?”

  • Do you see how the dynamic is fucked up? It doesn't matter what I answer, the person

  • just goes, “Sure, sure, great!” this is another bad thing to do.

  • After every answer you say, “Great,” orSureorAwesome,” or something.

  • It's like, “Really, is every answer I give awesome or great or are you just happy

  • that you got some answer and you just want to move on with your life?”

  • Male: It can be awesome and great. It could be, but it also could be that you

  • just say that to everything and everybody and you just want to get to the next question.

  • When you have a dynamic like that where somebody asked you questions and it doesn't seem

  • like they care about the answer, they just want to go on with the next question, you

  • feel like you're being interrogated. You feel like you're wasting time. It's a

  • pretty frustrating experience and it doesn't feel great to be that person that's being

  • asked all these questions. The other thing is when you're super authoritarian

  • and you just go, “How many people do you guys have over there?”

  • Calm down, bro. I'm not likeyou're not police. I'm not at custody. I don't

  • have to answer all your questions. Chill out, maybe you want to ask in a way that suggests

  • that you're curios, that you care and that I have the power to answer or not answer.

  • Not that you are some authority and you're demanding answers. That's not going to work.

  • That's not going to be a pleasant experience. You want to have the mind frame that you truly

  • care to reach what I call full understanding. You want to fully understand the other person.

  • Think of it as in painting by numbers. It's not enough to just get an outline of who they

  • are. It's not enough to just get an outline of what you're painting, them just telling

  • you it's a house, it's a tree is not enough detail for you to truly paint the right picture.

  • You have to ask, what kind of tree? How big? What's going on in the surrounding? Are

  • we fully zoomed in on the tree or is it a landscape mode? What color schemes do we use?

  • You need to ask a lot more questions to get the full picture and to make sure that what

  • you're painting is accurate with what they're living or what they have in mind. What you

  • want to do is truly care. Caring is the number one mindset you need to apply and utilize

  • to ask questions in a way that people want to give you the right answers, and want to

  • give you as many answers as you need. You want to care. You want to care enough that

  • you really want to understand, not just care enough to ask the question but care enough

  • to desire understanding. You want to go deep and not stay at the surface

  • level. An easy way to give you a practical mode to think like that is that you want to

  • have to do as little as possible of interpreting what they're saying. When they say, “We

  • just care about ease of use.” You don't want to interpret and go, “Oh ease of use,

  • I know what they mean by that. They want something to be fast and the U.I. to be really flashy

  • and cool and fancy,” and make interpretations of what that word means.

  • Instead of doing that, you want to ask them, “Hey, what do you mean when you say ease

  • of use? What about it needs to be easy? What about the experience needs to be easy? Do

  • you have an example of an application or product or a service or something you're using that

  • hits that requirement for you, something that would demonstrate to me, “What do you mean

  • or what kind of products you're looking for when you're thinking about ease of use?

  • See what I'm doing right now. I'm going deep.

  • I'm not just staying at the surface, not just taking the first thing they say and run

  • with it, not just take the first thing they say and interpret and make interpretations

  • and extrapolations into what that might mean. I ask them, “What does that mean? Do you

  • have an example of that for me, something that would make it more practical, more exemplify

  • that mole? Rather than just taking your words, I want to find something in the real world

  • I can look at that demonstrates that to me. When you ask these questions, don't just

  • stay at the surface because it means you don't give a crap but actually go deep. I'll give

  • you an example. The two questions I asked earlier where I said, “How many people would

  • use this? What features or functionalities would be important?” let's rewind and

  • do this right. If I ask a prospect, “Hey, how many people in your team would actually

  • use our product?” the person goes, “I don't know, maybe four or five.” You go,

  • Cool, tell me about these people. Have they been around in the company for a long

  • time? Have they just joined?” how long has it taken you to get this kind of a team? What's

  • the workflow like? Are they all working from the same location or different ones?

  • Let me ask you, moving forward in the next 12 months, is that team going to grow and

  • if so, how and to how many? What's the dynamic between the different people? If they're

  • all on the same team it's one thing but maybe there's a few people that are in sales

  • or a few people that are in support? How do they interact? How do they communicate, any

  • friction in the past, anything that we could do to anticipate the dynamics between the

  • team and how it relates to our product? See how I'm going deep in trying to truly understand

  • what that means? Why is it only five? How big is the entire company? “We're 5000

  • people.” “Wow, how come only five of 5000 will use our product?

  • Is it some kind of a task force, a special group? Is it a removed team that works on

  • something special or is it a small pilot test run that you would scale to thousands? Tell

  • me more about it. See how that information can completely change the picture of the information

  • that you just got? Go deep, ask follow up questions to get to true understanding because

  • once you understand someone you can effectively sell to them and effectively means get them

  • to buy quick if it's the right thing. Then when they buy, get them to get success out

  • of it and be happy and successful with your product or service.

  • The other thing is that because most conversationsmost of the time when people ask us questions

  • they don't truly care about understanding. They only stay at the surface level. When

  • you do, you stand out? Nothing is more powerful in building rapport and building a relationship

  • than having someone feel truly understood by you. If somebody feels truly understood

  • by you they will trust you. They will feel better about you and about their relationship

  • with you? They will want to talk more to you and spend more time with you. We've all

  • felt that there are certain people that we feel truly understood by.

  • How do we feel about these people versus others that we think that they don't really get

  • who we are? They just know superficially who we are and what we need but not really deeply.

  • It makes a massive difference in the relationship you built. Last on the point of asking questions,

  • some of you might now ask, this is all good. It's good to know but how do I do this?

  • I'm not experienced in asking so many questions. I'm not experienced in truly going to the

  • depth of the question and reaching understanding. How can I make sure that I do this right?

  • The only way to get it right is to do it a lot and to practice.

  • How about recording some of your prospecting calls or qualifying calls or qualifying conversations?

  • How about practicing this with your team members and getting feedback from them? Hey, was this

  • a smooth experience? Did I ask you the right question? Did you feel that I truly cared

  • about you that I really wanted to understand you or did you just feel like I'm going

  • through a list? Was it annoying in any way? How about practicing it and getting feedback

  • from others and working on your craft to becoming a very powerful and effective question asker.

  • Being good at asking questions and knowing how to ask the right questions can set you

  • apart from all the rest in the market and can make a massive difference in how many

  • deals you end up closing or not closing. I would suggest that you practice asking the

  • right questions as much as you practice giving the best pitch or making the best demo presentation.

  • I hope this was useful. If you have any questions that you want to ask, any follow up questions

  • to this topic, send me an email to steli@close.io, write a comment, subscribe to a channel. Reach

  • out, tweet to us, let this conversation move forward and let's add to the conversation

  • and see if we get to a better and better understanding on how to become better at asking the right

  • questions and how we can all work on our craft or the conversation and become better at it

  • and more effective at it. All right, now go out there and get them

Hey guys, this is Steli Efti with Close.io. I want to talk about the art of asking powerful

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