Top 5 Questions Customers Ask Themselves

In today’s market, sales people seem to be a dime a dozen. I cannot say that I know too many people who are not selling something. So, how do we make ourselves standout from the crowd? 

Prospects, buyers, clients, lend me your ears… If we want to capture our prospect’s attention rather than just show up as an interruption, we want to offer some value-add. Here are the top 5 questions customers ask themselves. 

As you read through these questions, think back to a time when you were making a notable purchase. How many of these questions came across your mind? 

1. Does this person have my best interests in mind? 

How can our prospect count on the fact that we will not take advantage of them? How can we make them see, feel, and know that? People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care. List out reasons why you care about our prospect before, during and after the sale?

2. How will this product impact me personally?

Too often, we want to sell far more than the prospect wants to buy. People don’t buy benefits or features; they buy the impact that the benefit/feature has on them as a director/manager/ provider/employee/individual, etc.

It is naive to think that the decisions we make at work are only related to our position at work and those made at home only relate to our non-work persona. To learn more about what personally impacts a prospect, come to the conversation with curiosity; understand what they personally need, value and how they make decisions.

3. Is it worth it? What may I have to give up? 

Help them find a solution to where what they might have to give up in exchange (time, money, training, disruption, etc…) is worth the investment. Before heading into any sale, know your top reasons that your product or service is worth 5-10 times more than the investment.  

How much money/time/effort do they gain to save or make? What other downstream areas will be positively impacted? What does that amount to over the lifetime of the product or service contract?

4. What will others think or say? 

Quite a bit of the decision making process centers on whether or not the decision maker can defend making the purchase when lower-cost solutions are available. How will this benefit people around the Decision Maker? Make it easy for the DM to justify their decision. Judgement from others is a real fear that even some of the most confident people can relate to. This is true especially when making a high dollar or major process interruption decision. 

Help put their mind at ease by equipping them with tangible reasons why this purchase is the best available option. Demonstrate quality (cheaper isn’t always better!), a significant and rapid ROI and/or noteworthy improvements to the operation of the business.

5. Must I really decide now? 

If people can put things off, they will. Most people are short term oriented and focus only on the pain of investment or headache of change up front. We need to help our prospect become aware of the positive impact of choosing now by getting them to refocus their attention on the gains.

Find a reason why the customer needs to buy today.  What will happen if they don’t buy now? What will happen if they stick with the status quo? 

The idea is to be accustomed with these questions, adapt the answers to your prospect, and work them into your conversation. Handling these questions will allow your prospect trust you, bringing you closer to the sale.

If you’d like to learn more simple sales hacks that will increase your results, I invite you to take a look at The Selling Mindset which offers you tools that you can apply immediately to accelerate your sales growth.