Ryan Dohrn shares three sales questions that actually work: what business problem do you want solved, how do you want to be positioned in the market, and what's the ideal result if you buy. He avoids tired openers like "what keeps you up at night" because they sound generic and don't move deals forward.
Hey friends, Ryan Dohrn here, your global sales coach. Thanks for all the questions you send in. This one today comes from Terry from LA, so I imagine that's Terry from Los Angeles, or maybe it's Terry from Louisiana. Either way, Terry, I think that you've got a great question here for me. All right, so the question is about questions. Ryan, what are the 3 main questions that you ask of every customer on a sales call? And so I would tell you this, Terry from LA, the same 3 questions What questions don't get asked on every sales call, but I can tell you a couple of questions that I really don't ask. I typically don't ask people to tell me more about their business because there's this thing called the internet where you should be prepared. Secondly, I don't ask many people to tell me their budget. I want to know the budget, and I'll get to that in a brief second, but I don't ask them their budget because I feel like they always give me a wonky answer, so I'll get to that. The third thing that I don't do is ask this question. Hey, Bill, what keeps you up at night? I feel like that's a way overused question, and then depending on when you ask it and how you ask it, it can be moderately creepy. All right, so here's the questions that I most typically ask. Number 1, when you agreed to meet with me, what business challenge or what problem were you hoping that I could solve? Okay, that's a good one. Or I might use a different version of that. If I could wave a magic wand, or if you could wave a magic wand, What business challenge could I solve for you? Okay, I think that's a good one. The second one I ask specifically for those of you that are in the media business— a lot of you are in the media business— when you think about marketing your business, do you want to be seen as present, kind of basic? Do you want to be competitive? Do you want to be dominant? And that question can work for other industries as well. And then the third thing is If everything went perfect, you buy what it is that I'm selling. So you would insert that there. If everything is perfect, what is the absolute perfect end result? If I could make you exceedingly happy, what would that look like? But I'm one of those people, I don't like to sell, I like to help. I would challenge you with this though. You've really got to focus in on what questions you're asking. Some of the questions you're asking have been overused. So Terry from LA, double-check your questions, make sure you're asking new questions. You don't want to sound like everybody else that's called on your customer in the past few months. All right, friends, I'm Ryan Dohrn. If I can be of help to you, reach out to me over at ryandohrn.com, D-O-H-R-N, and we will see you next time. Keep those questions coming in, would you?
