E245: 3 Questions to Ask to Instantly Stop Being Ghosted and Close More Trade Sales

Today we're going to go through the 3 questions to ask that will instantly stop you being ghosted, but more importantly, help you close more trade sales. 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. So last month I was asked a question by one of the members of our Sold Out Sales Teams Academy, and, and I really enjoy doing the Sold Out Sales Team Academy because we have quite similar people in terms of their commitments and willingness to really learn and grow, but also because there's a diversity of opinions and experiences, which I think builds a really great community. But the question that came in this session was actually from one of the less experienced salespeople. And it went something like this, "Hey Ben, can you tell me how you would ask for the business? I.e., how do you try and get deals closed yourself?" And I thought, wow, that's actually a question I've never been asked. I have spoken a lot around how we close deals with this group, but never about how I do it myself. And of course, when you're asked these questions, it helps you compartmentalize your thoughts into a teachable moment. And for me, everyone knows I love doing things in either threes or in fives. So for this group, in this instance, I actually spoke through the three ways that I ask for business. And these three levels come in varying levels or strengths of conviction. So today what I would like to run through is the soft, medium, and harder closes that I use and coach my teams directly to help them close more deals. Side note here, obviously the title of this episode is to help stop customers ghosting you and And I think that these are actually 3 really powerful questions, particularly the soft and the medium close, that you can use to help you re-engage customers when they're potentially not where you need them to be and help you move those deals forward. We say tiny steps often lead to the big deals getting done and progress over perfection when it comes to getting those tiny steps. So for me, I really like these soft and medium closers to help not only close deals but also move deals forward. Okay, so let's go through these today. The first question that I ask when it comes to trying to close business. And the one that's at the softest version of this is one that you will have heard from me before, and it goes something like this: What would you like to do next? The reason I love this question is because it requires an open answer from our prospects or our customers. It's not one that says, would you like to move forward, right? Yes or no? And can be a little bit jarring, but it's a question that encourages or invites whoever your customer is to talk about where they need to go to from here. Do they need to go and run it through procurement? Do they need to go and talk to their partner about it? Do they need to review numbers? Do they need to understand the value they're going to get out of the deal? And it's a question that I learned very late actually in my sales career. And it was at a time when I was actually struggling to ask for business myself. And I learned it from some great people around me because for me, the reason it works really well is that there's nothing really jarring in that question that generally makes customers feel, oh, here comes the hard close. Oh, they're trying to get me to move forward. Oh, I'm feeling under pressure here. It's very open but does step a deal forward. And when we take tiny steps to close big deals, that really helps us fulfill one of these tiny steps by saying, okay, Mr. or Mrs. Customer, what would you like to do next? What would you like to do from here? What are the next things that you need to tick off? What's next on your list to get done? If I ask someone else in the business about what needs to happen next, what would they say? If you had a moment to speak to your partner or boss or manager, as we call it, or board or other people involved in the project, what would they like you to do next? So you can ask a very large number of different ways, but the reason that I've seen it move a lot of deals forward is because it brings often to the surface what's getting in the way of a deal getting done. So that's the softer version, short and sharp as all the podcasts are. But I want you to have a think next time you're about to close out a deal or your team are about to close out a deal and they're a little bit stuck about, hey, here's a soft version, what would you like to do next? The medium version, which is a little bit firmer, not necessarily jarring, but one that can certainly receive a slightly harsher response at times, but at the same time has that level of conviction that can help you move a deal forward, is something along the lines of, would you like to get started? When would you like to get started? Are you ready to go? Are you ready to get moving? Can we get started? What's— is there anything else in the way so we can get started? Is there anything else you need me to do so we can get started? Right? And it's all a version of essentially saying, okay, let's get going. Now, I classify this as a medium close because of course the answer that can come back is no, we're not ready to get started. But the beauty of this medium close is that when you get that response, i.e., hey Ben, I'm not quite ready to get started, as I've had so many times over my sales career, is you can step back into that softer close, which is what would you like to do next? So in the medium close, or the slightly firmer close of Hey, are you ready to go? Gets pushed back to no, we're not. And then we can say, okay, great. What would you like to do next? What are the things we need to tick off from here to get you started? Again, both of these questions, when you start with the medium and move into the soft, will bring to the surface generally what's getting in the way of the deal getting done. And that is the most powerful thing we can do at this point in time. If it's not a yes, it's to understand what we need to do to get that deal moving forward. So softer version, what would you like to do next? Medium version, Are you ready to go? When would you like to get started? All right, the harder version. Now this, I don't think by any stretch of imagination is a hard close, but what we're doing is that we're putting forward in front of the customer a commitment that if we do something, we'd like something in return. And essentially what this is, is using the framework that we have gone through in this podcast is, if I, will you? If I take something off the price, will you move forward? If I arrange the team to start next week, will you move forward? If I'm able to add an extra whirlybird, if I'm able to paint an extra room, if I'm able to add an extra patch of grass, if I'm able to raise the ceiling height, if I'm able to throw in stainless steel sinks instead of brushed aluminium, right? Will you move forward? Now the will you doesn't have to always be will you get going, right? We can have smaller if I will yous that go along the lines of, okay, great, if I get this quote back to you by the end of the week, Will you get on a phone call with me next week to talk through? If I make time to speak to someone else in your business, will you arrange that for me? So we can certainly have softer versions of this, but what I really like about the hard, clean version is that when a customer wants something from us, we compare it with an equal request for commitment in return. So essentially what we're doing is trading value for commitment. So it's a harder version, but by no means a hard close. However, I like it because it allows us to increase commitment, not just from ourselves, but also our customer. Okay, so going back through those, the soft close, what would you like to do next? Very nice open question that encourages customers or your prospects to get talking. The medium version, when would you like to get started or are you ready to go? A great place to start when we want to have a little bit more conviction in asking for the business to move forward, or perhaps after we've asked the what would you like to do next before. When we get a no to that, we can move back into the soft version, which is again that what would you like to do next. Then the harder version or the cleanest version comes down to if I will you, and it's all about trading value for commitment. So we do something in return for commitment from our customers. So they're the 3 things that I'd love you to think about around how you can not only reduce your teams or yourselves getting ghosted on deals, but also close more deals. Because at the end of the day, I'm a really strong believer that a large number of businesses actually don't need more leads. They just need to close them out better. So as you're finishing up listening to this episode today, the key thing I'm hopeful that you do is take those 3 closers and write them down somewhere. So that you have them on your notepad, in your phone, wherever it may be, to at least be ready to recall as you need them and try one of those this week. Now, if you're one of those people that are spending hours of time wasted on sales quotes, right, that you're not closing, so essentially you're getting the leads in, but you're not able to close them effectively enough, then without doing things like we've gone through in this podcast, i.e., formalizing how you can close deals more effectively, then you'll probably keep getting those same stressors. Then you'll probably keep getting those same stressful results over and over again. And I, in the end, right, that means working long hours and not enough money in the bank to show for it. So we've got a free quoting quiz that will pinpoint exactly why you're not winning more jobs and what you need to do to quickly grow your sales by 20 to 25% and even more. So please click on the free quiz link in the show. It's free, takes less than a minute, and I'll personally come back with a response to give you some ideas around how you can really improve your sales. That's it for today. Please keep thinking about how you can be 1% better each and every day because it does make all the difference. Bye for now.