#52: The Easy Way To Close Before You Close

#52: The Easy Way To Close Before You Close

Read Time: 2.5 min

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Today, I wanted to share questions you should ask before you present pricing and segue into your offer.

The reason behind this series of questions is to prime the prospect and ignite their initial reason on why they first decided to reach out or agree to a meeting.

This technique will not guarantee that you will close the deal or even get their commitment to the next stage, but it will create a cognitive dissonance if they aren’t consistent with their initial needs. You are just repeating and reiterating what they’ve said.

We don’t rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training.

~ Archilochus (Greek poet)

I have taught and been using these questions for years. Robert Cialdini recently wrote a book about this called Pre-Suasion. I have not read it, but from what I’ve heard, it goes deep into the psychology of what I’m about to share.

Sales has nothing to do with actually selling. It has to do with human psychology, identifying pain, and empowering people to take action to resolve the source of pain. This is what a well-defined sales process is designed to do. There are things that you can do to what we call “priming the pump.”

Let’s look at the questions and the reason for asking them.

Question 1
Before we proceed, I wanted to reiterate why you initially reached out again. Can you remind me?

You ask this question to reignite the source of pain that prompted them to reach out, to remind them, and to bring that feeling of pain that needs attention and resolution to the front of their mind.



Question 2
Why did you feel now was the right time?

You ask this question again to have them relive all the different ways they’ve tried to fix the situation to no avail.

Question 3
What is the alternative to not moving forward with us?

You ask this question to remind them that the pain will not go away if they don’t take action. It will only intensify. You position your company as the life preserver to someone in the water drowning. All they have to do is grab it.

Question 4
Based on that conviction and understanding, this is clearly something you need, and we are super confident we will crush it for you. 

You ask this question to reassure them that this is a real pain point and to let them know that we will take care of them. They’re making the right choice, and people always want confirmation that they’re making the right choice (i.e., social proof).



Question 5
The good news is that we no longer charge $$$$$ to help you (____________) solve their use cases. The investment is now $$$ (much lower price.)

The idea behind is to throw out a high price point to anchor the prospect's expectations, and then you reveal the lower actual price to make them feel like they're getting a steal of a deal.

Two important notes: (1) You want to ask these questions before you start presenting pricing on your deck. It’s a way to bring the pain to the forefront and reignite their initial reasoning for reaching out. (2) If they are not a qualified opportunity via the BANT framework, these questions, for the most part, will be irrelevant. 85-90% of deals are closed on your initial discovery call. If you are not executing the discovery correctly, you are burning cash and wasting opportunities. If this is the case, you should get in touch with us.

Start incorporating these questions before your pricing and you’ll see how big of a difference they make.

That’s it for today, folks!

See you all next week.

Darren

P.S. If you’re ready to level up, you can book a call with me here

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