Hector_LaMarque_-_Importance_of_Closing_-_03_The_Importance_of_Asking_Questions

The main ideas from this information are: - Asking the right questions is important in sales. - Understanding what people really want is the key to selling a product or service. - Motivating prospects by showing them how you can help them achieve what they want. - Using tie-downs to get verbal affirmation from prospects. - Avoiding yes or no questions and asking questions that lead to affirmative answers. - Getting minor commitments throughout the presentation to make it easier for prospects to say yes at the end. - Addressing hidden objections by asking the prospect the real reason they are hesitant. - Seeking feedback from prospects to improve future interactions. You've got to ask questions. You've got to constantly be asking questions. Asking the right questions. Questions that when they answer clearly shows it makes sense for them to go ahead. You know, that's what you've got to do. You've got to do it in a pleasant way, in a professional way, not in a aggressive, overbearing way, but in a way that shows you care about them. People who don't understand people believe that giving tons of information and telling people more about their product or service is what sells their product or service. But that's not right. See, what you've got to do is you've got to find out what do people really want. Ask questions. What do you really want? And then you've got to show them how by being involved with you either as a client or a representative you can help them get that. That you're the guy that can help them accomplish what they want. That's what you've got to do. See, the most important thing you must do is find out exactly what the prospect wants. Only we can do that, folks, is by asking questions. You know, this is important because people are motivated by what they want. We're all motivated by that. We know what we want. We all know what we want, right? And if we run across somebody or something or some product that can help us get what we want, we'll go to great lengths to get that product or service or do that thing. We'll do it. So you've got to show them that you can get them what they want and they'll automatically be motivated to go ahead with the products, the F&A, the services, or the business opportunity. Here's some of the questions you might ask. Bill, is retiring sooner than later important to you? Would it be more important to you to be able to retire five to ten years sooner than you're currently on pace to? Do you have a debt freedom date set? In other words, do you know exactly when you're going to be completely debt-free? Look, how motivated are you to be debt-free? On a scale of one to ten, where would you be? In your 401k right now, do you know if you have a correct allocation that will allow you to reach your retirement goals? If yes, what is it? Do you know your financial independence number? Wouldn't you like to have a plan that can help you reach financial independence in a specific time period? Doesn't it make sense to have a plan in writing that specifically shows you how to achieve financial independence versus winging it and hoping things turn out well? Is there anything much more important than investing an hour or so to make sure your children's education is paid for and so that you can retire well and become debt-free? Do you plan on retiring in your present job or profession? Have you ever entertained having and owning your own business? If you could earn what you're currently earning or more while being your own boss, wouldn't you rather be your own boss than stay in your job? What's your plan to change careers or start your own business? If you don't have a plan, is there any reason you would invest twenty to thirty minutes and allow me to show you a way you can potentially own your own business and double or triple your income? You know, you don't seem like the kind of person who makes decisions without all the facts. Is that true? Then it makes sense to meet with me to get all those facts so you can make an informed and intelligent decision, doesn't it? If I can teach you exactly what to do to earn the money you said you wanted to, is there any reason you wouldn't go ahead and let me help you do that? Is making a difference and helping people important to you? I saw Primerica as my last chance to win in my life where I could earn an extra income and live my dream life. Is doing that important to you too? Is freedom important to you? If yes, you and I both know freedom isn't going to happen at your job or in the near future, so why don't you join me and let me help you get free? Alright, these are some of the tie-downs that you want to use when you're talking. Tie-downs are to have the prospect verbalize affirmation of going forward. So, in other words, we say, wouldn't you agree? Doesn't that make sense? Does that work for you? Couldn't you? Wouldn't you? Don't you agree? Those are the kinds of things that you say, you tag on at the end of a sentence like, hey Bill, wouldn't you agree that it makes sense for you to be a business owner versus to be an employee? Or, that makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, being debt-free and financially independent, that makes sense to have a plan to do that, don't you agree? That's what you want to use tie-downs for. Focus on at the end of a sentence, tying them down and getting a little mini-commitment. That's what, wouldn't you agree? That makes sense, doesn't it? Does that work for you? Couldn't you? Wouldn't you? Don't you agree? Those kinds of things, tagged on to the end of a sentence of a question, will get that minor commitment you need. And what you want to have is, you know, many, many minor commitments throughout your presentation as you're meeting with somebody or talking to somebody. Next thing is, do not ask yes or no questions. One of the things you don't want to do is, you don't want to ask questions that offer a direct yes or no question. Always give an alternative choice or ask questions that you already know the answer to. Like, for example, would you like to retire sooner or later? I can meet with you on Monday or Wednesday. Which is better for you? Would you rather meet at 6 or 8 o'clock? Which insurance solution makes more sense for your family, A, B, or C? Would you like to invest the difference or pay off your mortgage sooner and become debt-free? So you ask questions where no matter what the answer, it's an affirmative answer of going ahead. Alright? That's the way you want to formulate questions. Another thing you want to do is get these minor yeses, like I mentioned just previously, throughout your presentation. Minor yeses allow you to get minor commitments throughout the presentation. Doing this makes it much easier for the prospect to go ahead since they don't want to be inconsistent with their answers. So if you're constantly getting yes, yes that makes sense, yeah I would like to do that throughout the presentation. Then at the end of the presentation, if they've been saying yes all along, it's going to be incongruent for them to say, no I don't want to do that. It's going to be very difficult because people have a tendency to want to be congruent with what they say. So ask the prospect often if they'll go ahead if you can help them get what they want. For example, if I can put a plan together for you, John and Mary, that will allow you to retire sooner, become debt-free, and protect your family's income, will you implement my recommendations? That's a minor tie-down. When you get that tie-down, they say yes, then of course now that's a tie-down. If I'm able to help you pay your home and other debt faster than you're currently on pace for, will you go ahead with my plan? You notice these are really direct questions. You're asking directly for a commitment. That's very important. Helping your children with their education is important to you, isn't it? It's important to become debt-free, wouldn't you agree? Having a plan is important to you and your family's future, wouldn't you agree? If you could retire sooner, you'd want to do that, wouldn't you? Protecting your family's standard of living is important, isn't it? If I can offer you more protection for the same or lower cost, will you go ahead with my plan? If I can offer you a savings and retirement plan that meets your needs better than your current plan, will you move your money and invest in your future savings with me? If I can show you a way for you to earn the income you need to realize the life you want, will you join me in my business? If I can help you to earn the extra income you need to accomplish your goals, would you join me in my business? So we can see these are just getting minor yeses. These are the kind of questions that should be interspersed throughout your presentation, always asking for a minor commitment. If you do that, when you get to the end, getting them to go ahead is going to be just real natural. It's not even going to be having to, you're not going to be having to close. You're not going to have a lot of objections. It's going to be really, really easy. The other thing is you want to learn how to bring out the hidden or real objections because people, when they're afraid to go ahead, usually the reason that people are afraid to move forward is because they're afraid of making a mistake. There's something there that's holding them back. Especially when you have all the evidence that's saying to them, look, this makes total sense, you should go ahead. Oftentimes people will still be afraid of moving forward and the real reason that they're not talking to you about right now that's holding them back and usually it's the fear of making a mistake. So this is how you handle that. You say something like this, John, I'm really puzzled and concerned. Why aren't you going ahead? And so I don't make the same mistake with a future client. Would you mind telling me the real reason you're hesitant to go ahead? What I'm doing here is I'm just trying to find out what the real reason is so I can deal with it. I can't deal with, I want to think it over or that doesn't make any sense. That's not really the real issue. John, I feel badly that you aren't going ahead when it's clearly in your best interest to do so. I obviously did something wrong or I haven't been clear. Would you mind telling me what it is so I don't make the same mistake with future clients? Again, you're going to bring out what the real reason is. John, I'm really confused. Why aren't you going ahead? Would you help me out? Is it something I did or I said or is it the fact that I can offer you more protection for less money? Or is it that I can help you get out of debt 10 years sooner? Or is it that I can save you $50,000 in interest? Or John, could it be the money? What is the real reason you're not going forward? In other words, you want to find out. Hey John, sometimes when people are hesitant to go ahead, when it's obvious they should, like in this situation, it's usually because a person's afraid of making a mistake. By the way, this is true especially when they might have made a previous mistake, like buying cash, buying insurance, or making a bad investment choice. They don't want to make another bad investment choice, right? Or they're embarrassed that they made the bad investment choice in the beginning and they don't want to make a change because they don't want to admit that they made a mistake. Are you kind of concerned about making the right decision? Of course they're going to say yes. Well, let's recap one more time what we're going to do for you. And then what you do is you recap all the features and benefits of making the change. And you dollarize it. You let them know what they're going to lose, how much they're going to lose by not going ahead. If the solutions you present improve their financial situation and it's clear they should go ahead, you've got to ask yourself the questions that lead to the real reason or reasons they're not going ahead. Not closing hurts the client. It wastes your time. If you care about your client's financial well-being, you must master the art of getting to the final objection and close them. I can't stress this point enough. You must truly care about your client and the well-being of their family. This is evident when you only present solutions that improve upon their current situation and you close in a compassionate, caring way. You have a moral obligation to close when it's clearly good for them. And this is especially important because the financial service industry is not looking out for the client today who's in the middle market. We're their only hope. You must know and believe that this is true and it'll allow you to kind of soothe people's fears. The fear of making the wrong decision. And what you want to do is keep them in financial situations that benefit them and out of financial situations that do not benefit them. And finally, do not leave a client's home if they don't fully understand what they're purchasing and why it's good for them. I think a lot of the reasons that people have bad persistency is when they leave a client's home, the client doesn't really understand what they're getting involved in. Lots of times people use their relationships to get people to buy and then later on they start thinking about it and they're not sure why they even bought it or if it makes any sense and all they can see now is a monthly expense. And when people really understand what they're buying and what it's going to do for them and how it's going to change their life and how it's going to offer them more security, more peace of mind, a safe retirement, all that, when they really understand that what's going to happen is they're going to not be hesitant to go ahead. Bad persistency is generally the result of a client not fully understanding what we're offering them. So it's always a mistake to close a sale based on the relationship only. They've got to know how the solutions are going to help them get what they want. They have to feel like you're a caring friend who's looking out for them and leading them to where they ultimately want to go. They really understand what the whole program is and this is a plan to get them where they want to go financially. When I'm sitting down with a client, my main focus is I'll tell them all the time, I say, listen John and Mary, the whole point of this exercise tonight is for me to help you formulate some sort of a plan to get what you guys really want in your life. To live where you want to live, to educate your kids, to vacation like you like to vacation, to be charitable to the things that are important to you, to have a peace of mind that the future is going to be fantastic. That's the point here. I'm going to get you what you want. If you allow me to help you, I'm going to get you exactly what you want and I can help you do that a lot more quickly if you work with me, especially if you join my business. I know I can do that and I know you'd be great at this. So let me help you create the life you dreamed of because I know I can do that. I know the kind of people that you are, the kind of credibility you have, the quality of people that you are. There's no doubt in my mind that you could be super successful, number one, if you follow these recommendations, number two, especially if you get involved in Primeric with me. I know I can help you become successful much, much more quickly than you ever could with anybody else and I'm here to help you. I'm going to be your financial coach and I'm going to be your success coach. Let me help you do that. One of the things you must do too is you need to ask for the close a minimum of five times. Statistically, the true professional will ask up to five times for people to go ahead. People are hesitant to say yes until they believe you actually can deliver what they want. The key to being able to ask repeatedly is the tone in which you ask and your level of caring about the people you're trying to help and how much you want to help them with their financial situations. People can feel if you're simply trying to earn a commission or you truly care about their well-being. Never let anything get in the way of always doing what's in the best interest of the client. When you believe that whatever is good for the client is good for you, you're not going to have any problem closing easily, okay? And don't be afraid to ask several times, you know, in a different way and to find out exactly what's holding them back.