Strategy #11: The Opening Million Dollar Question
I’ve already shared a little bit of this strategy with you, and many of you have seen me teach this live at boot camps. It’s crucial. Always close your sales presentation with an open ended, positive question. Let me break that down for you before I get to the million dollar question.
Open-ended means that you are stating a question in a way that it is going to encourage a full answer. You aren’t going to allow your potential customer to get away with saying something like “no, yes, uh-huh” or any other answer that doesn’t give the opportunity to know exactly what they are thinking about your product, service, business, etc. This type of question also clearly lets your business prospect know that you are finished with your presentation, and it’s their turn to ask questions or voice concerns.
Let me give you a few examples for those of you that sell real estate: “John and Christie, what did you like best about the home?” Do you see how that question empowers the buyer to not only answer the question fully, but also to focus on the positive things that they like about the house first? By asking this question, you are extracting, developing, and building a positive response from them. What if you would have said this instead: “John and Christie, what did you think about the home?”
That’s a horrible question! Why? Because most people “think” negative. You never want to ask anyone what they “think” about your product, service, business or whatever you’re selling. Those are weak, fear-based words that don’t empower the buyer to do anything other than to complain and focus on the negative.
After you ask the open-ended, positive question, you just listen to their response and then build off of that response to handle their questions and concerns. I already let the cat out of the bag in which it is likely obvious to you that the real million dollar closing question is “What did you like best about it?” You will just replace the “it” with whatever you are selling.
The next few strategies are short and sweet and tie together so make sure that you are taking notes and not skipping ahead on the reading.
Strategy #11 Champion Tip: Always use open-ended positive questions at the end of your presentation to empower your buyer to answer the question fully and in a positive manner.