Podcast episode
NEVER Answer A Question Before Doing This
30 Minutes to President's Club29 Sept 20235 min
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Watch in full vibrant color: https://bit.ly/3Pt8zly 30MPC YouTube is here. It’s like Hollywood, except the hosts are even better looking than Brad Pitt.... 5 minutes, one tactic per video, with schweet visuals (real emails, roleplays) to make it even more actionable than the podcast. 30MPC Training: 30mpc.com/training
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If you're answering your prospect's questions without knowing exactly what the intent behind “their questions are, you're probably answering in a way that hurts your deal more than it” helps. A lot of salespeople have this bad habit left over from school where we're taught, hey, I'm supposed to give the right answer as quickly as possible, and that actually backfires in sales. Because if you don't understand the intent and the question behind your prospect's question
I'm supposed to give the right answer as quickly as possible, and that actually backfires in sales. Because if you don't understand the intent and the question behind your prospect's question and you just answer at face value, you'll actually more often than not answer in a way “where you over-answer, you under-answer, or you answer in a way that positions whatever” you do in a less than favorable light. And so today, I'm going to talk about some of the common pitfalls to avoid when you are answering your prospect's questions and how you can answer instead so that you get it right every single time. So let us get into things. And so let me give an example to make this real.
I'm supposed to give the right answer as quickly as possible, and that actually backfires in sales. Because if you don't understand the intent and the question behind your prospect's question and you just answer at face value, you'll actually more often than not answer in a way “where you over-answer, you under-answer, or you answer in a way that positions whatever” you do in a less than favorable light. And so today, I'm going to talk about some of the common pitfalls to avoid when you are answering your prospect's questions and how you can answer instead so that you get it right every single time. So let us get into things. And so let me give an example to make this real.
I misinterpreted the question and didn't understand the intent behind it, I ended up torpedoing my deal and I was able to backtrack a bit. But by then, there's so much friction that I unnecessarily introduced. I sent myself in the wrong direction. And so to avoid that pitfall, I should have calibrated my answer by understanding the question behind his question. “And I could have said something simple like, yeah, Dave, I'm happy to talk about that.” My guess is you're asking that question for a reason though, and there's something specific you're trying to understand. And then I would have gotten the intent behind this question and I could have answered in a way that would have explained, yeah, we can shut off financial report access to attorneys. The framework, anytime you get a loaded question is one, tell them you're going to answer the question.
question. You don't want to appear difficult, but then to tell them, Hey, I feel like I need a little more information to get you the right answer. Another common one is the prospect will say, Hey, can you tell me about X feature? They say something like, Nick, can you tell me about your analytics functionality in the accounting system? Well, I don't know. “Are they hoping to understand that just, yeah, we have it, or do they want to know way more” detail about it because they've got a whole analytics module today and they want to make sure that they can get the same stuff. I don't know the depth of answer that they're looking for or the type of answer that they're looking for here. And chances are, I could probably ramble about our analytics and reporting for like a good 90 minutes. Cause I've done all this product training.
They say something like, Nick, can you tell me about your analytics functionality in the accounting system? Well, I don't know. Are they hoping to understand that just, yeah, we have it, or do they want to know way more detail about it because they've got a whole analytics module today and they want to make sure that they can get the same stuff. “I don't know the depth of answer that they're looking for or the type of answer that they're” looking for here. And chances are, I could probably ramble about our analytics and reporting for like a good 90 minutes. Cause I've done all this product training. I'm basically going to tell them that, and I'm going to say something like, yeah, I'm happy to talk about it. You know, I could probably talk about our analytics module for like a good hour and a half, but my guess is you don't want me to do that.
looking for here. And chances are, I could probably ramble about our analytics and reporting for like a good 90 minutes. Cause I've done all this product training. I'm basically going to tell them that, and I'm going to say something like, yeah, I'm happy to talk about it. You know, I could probably talk about our analytics module for like a good hour and a half, but my guess is you don't want me to do that. “Is there something specific you're hoping to understand?” Boom. Now I can get a detailed response from them about what they want to understand and modulate and calibrate my response. And so obviously I'm not going to do this every single time. My prospect asks me a question that's going to make me seem like I have zero EQ and get a little bit annoying.
90 minutes. Cause I've done all this product training. I'm basically going to tell them that, and I'm going to say something like, yeah, I'm happy to talk about it. You know, I could probably talk about our analytics module for like a good hour and a half, but my guess is you don't want me to do that. Is there something specific you're hoping to understand? Boom. “Now I can get a detailed response from them about what they want to understand and modulate” and calibrate my response. And so obviously I'm not going to do this every single time. My prospect asks me a question that's going to make me seem like I have zero EQ and get a little bit annoying. But anytime I get a question where I'm like, there's a lot behind that question, or I could