Ben Wright shares a seven-word closing question for trade contractors: "What would you like to do next?" It's softer than asking for the sale directly, surfaces real objections like needing a partner's approval or other quotes, and lets you respond with tailored next steps instead of a simple yes or no.
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There are 7 powerful words, only 7 powerful words that I recommend to every single one of our trade businesses to help them close more deals. Today, we're gonna work through what they are. Welcome to Trade Sales Made Simple, the show helping 7 to 8 figure trade, construction, and industry leaders finally end the stress of inconsistent sales by simplifying your sales systems so that you can close more deals and grow faster. I'm your host, Ben Wright, and over the last 15 years, I've helped hundreds of trade and sales leaders grow their businesses and generate over $200 million in additional revenue by simplifying their sales processes. Let's get started. Earlier in the month, I had a terrific workshop with a team across in New Zealand. So one of the less frequent times that I'm prepared to fly out of the country to work with teams, but this is a brilliant business and a brilliant team and I really like working with them, so I took the opportunity to do it. One of the comments I had from a very experienced salesperson and leader in that business, so 25-odd years in selling and about a decade in people leadership, was that he gained some real insight and help on how I can improve with my sales techniques and processes. So this is from an experienced sales leader where we went through a lot of the basic fundamentals of building out good sales process. And of course, it always gets me thinking when I get feedback from any workshop around what's most important. But an area that I'd like to focus on, which we very specifically spent quite a bit of time on in that workshop, is just 7, simply 7 powerful words that come towards the end of a sales process that get more deals done. So as we work into these 7 powerful words, I want you to think about where you stand when it comes to asking the customers for a deal. So regardless of what business you're in, are you a painter? Are you a plumber? Are you an electrician? Are you a roofer? Are you laying concrete slabs, building pools, cleaning windows? It doesn't matter what it is. I want you to have a think about how you go about moving a customer from having received the quote to deciding if they're going to go forward. And universally, from just about every trade business I work with, there is some trepidation in asking the customer if they'd like to move forward. And the trepidation generally sits either around they don't want to kill the deal, so they're worried about getting a no, or they're just a bit uncertain about how to ask for it. And that often comes down to, I think, a fear of being a little bit embarrassed. Mm-hmm. That they might ask the question and the customer might think poorly of them. Well, the 7 words that I want to go through today, the powerful words, is the softest way of asking for a customer to move forward that I've ever worked with. And those words, rather than just string you on for too long, are, "What would you like to do next?" So let me pause and say them again. What would you like to do next? It is the most powerful one line sentence that I have ever used with customers, ever. It's the one sentence that I recommend to every single team that I work with. And the reason I like it so much is because it's not only soft, so it's not a jarring, "Are you ready to go? Do you want to move forward? Let's get going." But at the same time, it's open. And being an open question, it's very difficult for a customer to ask that with a yes or a no. Would you like to get started? No. Would you like to get moving? No. Are you ready to commence? No. Versus, what would you like to do next? Well, what I need to do is go home and speak to my husband. What I need to do is speak to my wife. I need to meet with our CFO. I need to meet with our GM. It's very much opening up for the customer to take some control of the process. Now, the 7 words, what would you like to do next, they're also very easy to remember and easy for us as trade businesses to ask. What naturally comes from here is that customers will generally step through what they're gonna do from here. And another one of the reasons that I really like these powerful words is because once we get that feedback from the customer, there is no guessing. We don't need to try and assume what they wanna do. If they say, "No, we're not ready to go," we get to very clearly hear from them what's gonna happen next. And when we hear that, we then get to say, "Okay, great, how can I help?" If we ask the customer, "What would you like to do next?" And they say, "I need to speak with my partner," Fantastic. What do you think they're going to say? Is there something I can do to help you explain it to them? Would you like to get on a phone call with them? In our episode earlier in the week, episode 230, we spoke about a carpet laying example around how when we leave the product specs on site, we can be arranging for a very quick call with both parts of the decision maker, both couples. In this instance, it was a home to talk through the different types of samples. Right. When the customer comes back and says, I need to get other quotes. Fantastic. What do you like about our quote? What are the pieces that's really important to you? Is there anything in there that you, you think you could sacrifice if you needed to bring the cost down? Once you meet with any other suppliers, feel free to give me a call with anything you're not sure about. In fact, would you like to make some time and we'll book in that call? So those 7 powerful words, "What would you like to do next?" are absolutely without doubt the words I recommend when any customer says to me, "How do I ask for the business?" Just to recap on why, number 1, is because they're nice and soft, they're not offensive, and for every single, well, for the majority of trade people I've worked with, they're happy to ask them. But number 2 is it opens up the conversation and it gets the customer talking. So that is the main message from today. Short, sharp, punchy episode. I'd love for you to have a think about how you're asking for the business, but even more importantly is from today, are you able to roll that into your deals? So for a customer visit that you have today, are you able to roll in what would you like to do next? Yeah. Because for many people that we work with, they have a huge frustration that they quote large numbers of deals and they simply can't close enough. And that leads to frustration because they're quoting again and again and again, but getting the same result, which means working long hours and not enough money to show in the bank for it. So we have a free quote quiz that will audit your quote process and then make a time to have some 15 minutes or so with us. It's very simple. There's a free quote quiz link in our notes. Jump in and have a go at that. What would you like to do next will no doubt come out as a result from that if you're struggling with closing deals. But jump in, it's easy to do. And between now and next podcast episode, please keep being 1% better every day. It does make all the difference. Bye for now.
