Sales Conversation Framework : Part 2 - Why Us and Why Now?

Last week, we touched on the 3 tiers of questions within the "Why Change" category. This set of discovery questions not only allow us to understand the challenges surrounding the prospect's world, it also serves to reaffirm the prospect that they potentially have a compelling reason to move away from status quo.

This week, we will take a closer look at questions around "Why Us" (Expectations) and "Why Now" (Timeframe).

WHY US?

While many sales professionals could have asked questions to understand the current situation of the prospect, only a handful try to understand what the prospect is looking for when it comes to long term partnership and what to expect in the future.

It is critical for us to be reminded that customers have choices. Be it a different solution provider selling the same product stream, or a solution provider representing a alternative offering.

In fact the reality is, many sales are so focus in closing the sales that they either forget or do not bother to ask some of these important and insightful questions :

- “If you had very similar proposals on the table, what would be the deciding factor of who you would partner with?”

- "What would you like to achieve in the longer term with this investment?"

- " What would your idea partnership look like?"

- "What is the company's 3-year vision? What are you going differently to get there?"

Make these questions mandatory in your engagement and you will soon be on the road to understanding prospect's future expectations and adding value as you will be perceived as someone who are interested in the prospect's business.

WHY NOW?

This is a very important category. It drives urgency with the prospect on why they need to take action now and not wait 1 month, 2 months, a year down the road.

The questions, when used at the right moment, are self acknowledging and quantify the problem that the prospect has.

Examples of such questions include :

- "What happens if you do not resolve this business issue in the next 3 months?"

- "What are the negative implications if you do not resolve this?"

- "If there is one thing that compels you to take action immediately, what would that be?"

If a prospect does not have a compelling reason to take action now, there is a high chance that the sales opportunity would stall or take forever to decide.

"This set of discovery questions not only allow us to understand the challenges surrounding the prospect's world, it also serves to reaffirm the prospect that they potentially have a compelling reason to move away from status quo

- Cherry B

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The "Why Us" and "Why Now" set of questions is really a wake-up call to the sellers, that they are not the only option and that prospect has a choice to decide when they should trigger an action to buy.

It is the job of us, being a trusted consultant, to uncover the expectations, message our value and remind the compelling reason for change, all these by asking the right questions.

Next week, we shall look at another interesting category of the Sales Conversation Framework by discussing "Why Trust?".

While we wait for the week to past, share with us your experiences or give us any comments around this framework.

Cherry-O!

#Consideration