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Published February 6, 2002 Three Big Questions Last November I did a talk to the regional meeting of Pro Equities, a National securities firm. They were a great group of professionals, with a broad range of experience in the financial services industry. One of the reps asked me for the notes to the talk but the last two months were so wrapped up with activity that his request wasn't met so I thought I'd just put the notes into this article and kill two birds with one stone. In my talk I spoke about several common mistakes that sales people make and prefaced the list with what I call the Three Big Questions. The questions are: What are you putting up with? What do you really want? What are you willing to do to get it? I see these as the core questions that I address both as a coach and as a salesperson. Let's look at them today from a selling/buying point of view. Question number one " what are you putting up with?" addresses the essential fact that nobody buys anything unless there is dissatisfaction with the status quo. If there isn't something that a prospect is "putting up with" then there is nothing you can sell them. Period. So the answer to this question is an essential qualifier as to whether you have a real prospect or not. And the question isn't "what do you (the salesperson) see that they are putting up with". The buyer must feel it. Your seeing it may indicate future possibility or even a line of questioning to take in order to find out if there is a problem they want to fix. But until the prospect feels it there will be no buying. Question number two addresses the reality that the buyer must see, and believe in, an alternate reality before there will be a purchase. Many times I have found people who hate what they have but are sold only on the idea of that being the way things will always be. No open mind to new possibility. Or they may not believe that YOU can create it. Either way, if there is no belief in change, there will be no purchase. If you have the right answers to questions one and two, then number three brings you to the issue of whether the buyer is willing to do what it will take in order to solve the problem. This could be spending their budget, increasing it, changing the way they have done it in the past, etc. The key point here is that a purchase is a change and the bigger the change you are asking people to make the greater the importance of there being something they are putting up with and of their being motivated to have something else. This may all seem elementary but I find that when a seller begins to look for the answers to these three questions the business of selling becomes much clearer and much cleaner. If there is no problem (putting up with) then you have no prospect. If there is no belief (really want) there will be no movement. If they aren't willing to do what needs to be done (play by the rules, pay the price, etc.) you will not close the deal. I'll leave you with that to think about this week. Next week I'll cover some of the common mistakes and then we'll also take a look at the Three Big Questions from a pure coaching perspective. I promise it will be interesting.

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