SecretsofQuestionBasedSelling_BIZ.pdf

Secrets of Question Based Selling

Thomas A. Freese

Publisher:

Sourcebooks

Date of Publication:

Inc.

2000

ISBN:

Number of Pages:

About the Author

270 pages

Thomas Freese

The Big Idea

In sales, asking the right question is just as important as knowing

what to say. This is the principle behind Question Based Selling

(QBS) . Salespeople must know how to ask the proper questions to

clients and customers in order to identify new opportunities, qualify

accounts and uncover needs. In addition, asking questions also

smokes out any objections that may hinder the sale which is crucial

in closing a transaction.

The first time Thomas Freese

oversold his sales quota by 200

percent, everyone thought it was a

fluke. When he did it again, they

assumed it was just some sort of

freak accident. Then, over and over

for seven consecutive years, Tom

not only exceeded his sales quota,

he doubled it. Suddenly, his success

in selling was more than a trend. It

was a business phenomenon!

With more than seventeen years

experience in the trenches of

corporate sales and management,

Tom packaged his unique approach

into a proven sales methodology

called Question Based Selling. Now,

he works with companies all over

the world showing salespeople how

a question-based approach can

exponentially increase their

bottom-line results.

As founder and president of QBS

Research, Inc., Tom has published

three books on selling: It Only

Takes 1% To Have a

Competitive Edge in Sales,

Secrets of Question Based

Selling, and The New Era of

Salesmanship (Formerly QBS

II: Getting Deeper, Wider, &

More Strategic). Today, Tom is

considered to be one of the

foremost authorities on sales

effectiveness, buyer motivation,

and business strategy.

For more information, visit

Question Based Selling offers a unique approach by providing

you a step-by-step, easy-to-follow program that will enable you to

ask the right questions at the right time. Author Tom Freese takes

you through the QBS methodology, showing how you can

penetrate more accounts, establish greater credibility, generate

more return calls, and close sales faster.

http://www.qbsresearch.com

Published by BusinessSummaries, Building 3005 Unit 258, 4440 NW 73rd Ave, Miami, Florida 33166

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Sales Strategies for Spectacular Results

Author:

1570715882

Secrets of Question Based Selling By Thomas A. Freese

PART ONE: A Short Course on QBS Strategy

Chapter 1 - Increasing Your Probability of Success

In sales, the average success rate for engaging new prospects is between two to five

percent. This means that for every one hundred sales calls, the average

salesperson will uncover only a handful of qualified opportunities. This low success

rate translates to a difficulty in filling the pipeline with revenue opportunities.

The challenge if for salespeople to keep themselves motivated, even if the vast

majority of sales calls end in rejection. QBS teaches you how to be different in order

to achieve above-average sales results.

Selling Isn't about “Right” and “Wrong”

Every salesperson knows that each sales transaction is unique because clients will

have different needs, biases, and experiences. The concepts behind “right” and

“wrong” are much too absolute to have any constructive value in sales. The author

does not suggest that QBS is the right way to close a sales transaction. Nor does he

imply that your current approach to selling is wrong. Instead, he expects you to

make changes in your sales strategy. After reading this book, you will discover new

and more productive ways to approach the sales process by using techniques that

will increase your probability of success and decrease your risk of failure.

A Methodology Based on Cause and Effect

One of the goals of QBS is to simplify the sale. This is accomplished by identifying

the events, activities, and strategies that will increase your probability of closing a

sales transaction. It makes sense to incorporate those techniques and strategies

that will move you closer to the desired goal, while disregarding other actions that

produce undesirable results.

The single most effective way to increase your probability of success in a sale is to

decrease your risk of failure. Probability and risk share an inverse relationship in

sales: when one goes up, the other goes down. You need to minimize the risks

involved in a sales transaction in order to increase your probability of success.

Five Closing Attempts

Statistics show that the average sale requires five closing attempts before a prospect

is ready to make an emotional commitment. Customers first need to get comfortable

with the idea of owning the product or service before they are ready to make a

purchase decision. Other salespersons, being averse to risk, fail to make it to the

fifth attempt. This results in many qualified sales opportunities being left on the table.

Opening the Floodgates of Opportunity

In the QBS Methodology there are numerous ways to use questions to reduce or

eliminate your risk. Open the conversation by asking, “ Did I catch you at a bad

time? ” If the prospect says, “ No, this is not a bad time ,” then you have their

permission to proceed.

If they reply, “ Yes, this is a bad time ,” then you know that plowing forward and

interrupting them wouldn't have succeeded anyway. Instead of hanging up, ask

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Secrets of Question Based Selling By Thomas A. Freese

another positioning question, “ When should I call back? ” Very few civilized people

will say, “ Don't ever call me back .” More likely than not, prospects will give you a time

to call back. Now, you have an appointment.

Chapter 2 - Mismatching: The Avoidable Risk

Mismatching is a form of disagreement. It's an instinctive and emotional behavior

that causes people to respond or push back in a contrarian manner; usually by taking

the opposite viewpoint on what's being said. Mismatching is a behavioral tendency

and it often occurs in sales. It communicates disagreement, which increases your

risk and lowers your probability of success.

What Mismatching Means for Salespeople

Prospects and customers do not want to be mismatched. Salespeople must be wary

about contradicting, correcting, or one-upping them. Remember that if you are

mismatching your prospects or customers, you are literally undermining your own

success. If you are fond of mismatching, work with your manager, mentor, coach or

sales trainer in order to correct this behavior. When you've made the necessary

adjustments, you will significantly improve the quality and depth of your sales

conversations.

However, when potential buyers mismatch you, it becomes an entirely different

thing. You can't just tell them to stop. In fact, you will find that prospects and

customers tend to mismatch salespeople automatically. Do not be offended when

this happens.

Telling is Not Selling

Buyers today don't want to be pushed, persuaded, or otherwise convinced. Nobody

wants to be manipulated into buying something they don't need. You can't just tell

the customer to buy from you because he or she would benefit the most from it. To

succeed in sales, you must uncover needs and then educate prospects and

customers on the value of your product or service. Help them recognize an

opportunity to improve their existing condition.

Five QBS Strategies That Reduce Your Risk

Below are five key strategies you will learn that will minimize your risk of

mismatching:

1. Ask More Questions and Make Fewer Statements - Minimizing the

mismatching behavior starts with prevention. If you can identify and prevent

those things that cause people to mismatch the things you say or do, then

you can avoid a negative reaction.

Statements are easily mismatched in conversations because most

statements take a definitive position that can easily be disagreed with.

While statements can be easily mismatched, questions are not. Questions

help diffuse the emotional triggers that fuel the need to mismatch. After all,

it's impossible to disagree with a question.

2. Credibility Reduces the Prospect's Need to Resist - Establishing

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Secrets of Question Based Selling By Thomas A. Freese

credibility should be one of your primary objectives in the sales process. If a

salesperson appears credible to the prospective customer, then the

prospect's need to mismatch is reduced because they start feeling

comfortable with you, rather than cautious of you. An air of credibility also

opens the door to a more productive conversation.

3. Curiosity Neutralizes the Mismatching Reflex - Making prospects and

customers curious is the most effective way to engage them in a productive

sales conversation. People who are curious will want to hear more about

your product or service. When customers ask you a question to satisfy their

curiosity, they are actually requesting your help and it's impossible to ask for

your help and push you away at the same time.

4. Reversing the Positive - The following questions have a negative tone, so

when someone answers and takes the opposite position they actually

mismatch in your favor. This technique is called reversing the positive.

“Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Am I interrupting?”

“Is next week too soon for a presentation?”

“Will the pricing in this proposal make your boss nervous?”

5. Momentum Helps Reduce the Mismatching Instinct - Most prospective

buyers won't make a buying decision just because the guy down the street

decided to take the plunge. They will need more evidence to get convinced.

Instead of trying to motivate potential customers with individual references,

QBS shows salespeople how to leverage the Herd Theory which will be

discussed in the next chapter.

Chapter 3 - The Hard Theory

The Herd Theory is a momentum play that also works as a mismatching reduction

strategy. It works with a concept that if everyone else already seems to be moving in

a certain direction, prospects will feel much less of a need to resist or push back.

Why the Herd Theory Works

The Herd Theory surrounds prospects with a sense of momentum to establish

credibility and convey a greater sense of value. If you could demonstrate that

everyone else was interested in, and excited about your product, wouldn't that

communicate a greater sense of value and lower the prospect's risk? By showing

prospects that “everyone else” is already moving in a certain direction, you can more

easily motivate potential buyers to move in that same direction as well.

Standard Approach vs. QBS Strategy

The standard approach sounds like this:

Seller: “Mr. Prospect, my name is Thomas Freese and I am with

KnowledgeWare, Inc., the leading provider of development

software, based in Atlanta. We develop and sell Computer Aided

Software Engineering tools, and I wanted to get together with you to

discuss how our products can address your programming needs.”

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Secrets of Question Based Selling By Thomas A. Freese

The author tried this approach and he didn't get many hits. Most of the prospects he

called have already received a steady stream of sales calls that sounded the same as

his.

The next time, he started calling prospects with a different purpose. He wanted to

build a sense of anticipation and excitement around the event. He told the prospects

that everyone would be at the event, and he is just making sure that no one is left out.

The new approach went something like this:

Seller: “ Hello, Mr. Prospect, my name is Tom Freese, and I'm the regional

manager for KnowledgeWare in Kansas City. I wanted to contact

you about the CASE application development seminar we are

hosting at IBM's Regional Headquarters on August 26. Do you

remember seeing the invitation we sent you?

Frankly, we are expecting a record turnout of over one hundred

people, including development managers from US Sprint, Hallmark

Cards, Pepsi Co., Yellow Freight, Kansas Power & Light, the

Federal Reserve Bank…just to name a few.

I wanted to follow up because we haven't yet received an

RSVP from your company and I wanted to make sure you didn't get

left out .”

The second approach is a highly positioned approach that is also 100 percent

accurate. The seller wanted to know that IBM was endorsing this event. He was

able to communicate that “everyone else” was attending the seminar by rattling off an

impressive list of marquis company names that he was “expecting” to attend.

Herd Theory Application in the Sales Process

The Herd Theory is a powerful technique for establishing credibility and generating

interest at the beginning of the sales process. Prospects are naturally curious when

they find out that “everyone else” seems to be moving in a certain direction. And

once they are curious, they will want more information. This theory is also useful in

providing emotional reassurance that is needed to pull a trigger on a purchase.

Overcoming Objections

Herd references are valuable because it can be used to overcome objections and

show customers why your product provides the best solution. Surrounding

prospects with a credible herd reduces your risk because you become the

messenger, not the message.

Prospect: “ I'm concerned that your price seems too high .”

Seller: “ I understand how you feel. Other customers have felt the same

way. Take Nationsbank, for example, who had similar concerns

about price until they found that the value of our product far

outweighed its cost .”

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