You’ve labored for months with a prospect who seemed interested in your services. She returned calls and replied promptly to emails. Everything was moving right along and then … nothing. Nada. Radio silence. No more returned calls. No more email exchanges. And no explanations.
Frantically, you mentally retrace your steps and re-read email threads to find clues behind this maddening silence. Finally, she calls…but only to explain that she’s had second thoughts, looked into alternatives, and is now leaning toward a competitor.
Sound heart-breakingly familiar?
While it’s not uncommon for a prospect to second-guess a big decision, it’s also relatively common for top-notch sales professionals to persuade the prospect to revisit their initial interest and seal the deal. The key is to help your prospect come to their own conclusion AND stick with you.
A ValueSelling Framework® core principle is that “people need a reason to change.” Change is difficult for many people because of the risk and uncertainty that is attached to it. In order to find the source of apprehension, have a conversation that includes well-placed anxiety questions. Anxiety questions, asked correctly, will lead a client or customer to understand the unique value of your offerings.
Consider one or more of the following anxiety question tactics. Ask questions that:
- Develop a reason to change from the prospect’s perspective by uncovering their key business issues
- Help cast doubt in the prospect’s mind about the value of a competitor’s products or services
- Create a sense of urgency
For example, “How do your company’s products stack up against the competition in terms of reliability?” or “Does your company’s service record trump others?” Ask your prospect if they have considered the consequences if a machine is out of service. Make sure you phrase it so that they momentarily experience the anxiety they would feel if their system shut down. This way, you’re challenging their current thinking without insulting their intelligence or damaging the connection you’ve established.
As a salesperson, you can’t force a customer to change. But you can help people fully understand their business issues and realize, on their own, the need to change direction. If you can lead conversations to uncover conditions and reveal consequences the prospect may not have considered, you create opportunities to steer them back around to your solution.
