Idea of the Week - Total Selling Systems

Warren Wechsler's
Idea of the Week

Sales Disease

Warren Wechsler, bestselling author and national sales and motivational speaker, provides many valuable resources free of charge to sales trainers and sales managers. Some restrictions apply to the use and distribution of this information. For more valuable materials, visit Warren's web site www.totalselling.com. All materials and content © Warren Wechsler, 2001 – All rights reserved.

The Sales Idea of the Week is the cure for the illness I described earlier as far as not being willing to ask obligating questions. If you are the person who cannot ask obligating questions, you have a sales disease. Because I'm the Sales Doctor, I'm going to give you the cure.

You might say, "Well, gee whiz, it's so hard. Why is it so difficult for me to ask obligating questions?"

The reason is one of the outcomes of asking an obligating question is you might hear the answer, "N-O," that "no" word, the rejection word that none of us like to hear. The interesting statistic is that most great salespeople hear that word no about 50% of the time. We just have to face it that if you're going to be at the top of your game…In fact, the top 2% of all salespeople are those that can hear "no" 50% of the time and keep asking the obligating questions. So once we understand that having the word "no" is a given, we have to steel ourselves against the fact that this could be the time that someone says "no". You've always heard that saying, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." It applies in selling as well. So yes, we're going to hear no's, but we can't be afraid of what that no might be like or what it might sound like when we hear it.

The best way to train yourself how to ask obligating questions is to think in terms of "what's next?" Once we think in our mind, "What's next? What do I need to do to get this sales process to the next step?" the obligating question will appear.

When I do sales meetings with my corporate clients or do seminars that are open to large groups of people, I get to this part of the training and I always say, "OK, folks, give me an example of an obligating question." Invariably I look out at the crowd and they are stunned. They can't think of one when they're put on the spot. These are salespeople who have been in business for one month, one year, five years, ten years. When asked on the spot, "Give me an example of an obligating question", most people freeze up and they can't even think of one.

It's usually up to me at that point to say things like, "Let me give you some examples. Where do we go from here? How are we doing so far? What else do we have to do? Can we get this rolling today? Would you like to start next Tuesday? How does this sound as a first step?" These are so easy and simple once you understand what a "what's next?" question sounds like.

If you were on the phone with someone and you were explaining what your product could offer and your goal was to get the appointment, what do you think the obligating question might be in that case? It might be, "When can we get together? How does next Tuesday at 3:00 sound? What about Mondays? Are the afternoons good for you?" These are all examples of asking yourself in the mind, "What's next?" and then the question appears.

So here's the main point. If you train yourself to ask that phrase "what's next?" then you will have an obligating question appear in your mind. I don't care if it's a close question like "Do you want to get started? Are you going to buy this product from me?" or an open-ended question like "When do you want to get started? What type of order would you like to place?"

I don't really like to play those games you read about in books sometimes such as the alternative choice and all that. I say just figure out an obligating question and then ask it. That's my Sales Idea of the Week. Get out your pencils and write down the words "what's next?" and then you'll understand how to master asking obligating questions.

This was a partial transcript from Warren Wechsler's weekly radio show. Warren Wechsler, bestselling author and national sales and motivational speaker, provides many valuable resources free of charge to sales trainers and sales managers. Visit Warren's web site www.totalselling.com Also, listen to Warren's weekly radio broadcast Wednesday's at 4:05 - 5:00 pm Central time, on KMCD-AM 1570AM. Shows are broadcast live on the internet at http://www.warpradio.com/asx/KMCD-AM.asx