article options:      send feedback           

Beyond Your “Story”—Gain Credibility through Questions

By Jeff Thull

I’m sure you’ll agree that establishing credibility is one of the most critical elements in securing a new client. Clients must see you as a credible and trustworthy resource.

When we ask our program participants to describe the elements of credibility, they often suggest things like: a proven track record, a list of satisfied clients, number of years in business, financial strength, and business size. Those are all contributors to credibility.

Our next question is: “How do you establish or convey that credibility to prospective clients?” Invariably, the response is, “We tell them.”

Now the sobering question: “How different is your own firm’s credibility “story” from those of your two best competitors?” Unfortunately, other than a few minor details, they are likely to sound quite similar. Therefore, telling the credibility story suggests that you and your competitors are more alike than you are different.

The usual firm story is what we refer to as “expected credibility.” In other words, people expect you wouldn’t be in business if you couldn’t provide that kind of credibility. They really see it as table stakes. It’s expected and they’d be surprised and quite skeptical if you didn’t have it.

To truly set you and your firm apart, you need to develop “exceptional credibility” with clients. Expected credibility is what you convey about your business and your solutions. Exceptional credibility is built on what you learn about your clients, their individual job responsibilities, their business objectives, performance, and their challenges.

The best way to develop exceptional credibility is through diligent preparation and thought-provoking questions. Unfortunately most salespeople prepare very little, ask too few questions, and the questions they do ask are usually superficial.

Let’s look at the traditional approach. The majority of salespeople start with the needs analysis, which is a fine concept. The trouble is—their questions rarely reach the thought-provoking level.

Here’s a worst-case example based on selling software to control compressors at a chemical plant where an inefficient compressor and the lack of proper controls are resulting in three or four all-day shutdowns per year:

Qualification: “Are you using compressors to support your manufacturing process?” If yes, they are qualified, go on to the Needs Analysis.

Needs Analysis: “Are you currently using software to coordinate the output of the compressors?”  If no, they have a need, go on to the Presentation.

Presentation: “Let me show you the advanced control systems we have built into our software and how they will increase the productivity of your operation and reduce your energy costs.”  If the client seems interested, go on to the Close.

Close: “Let’s set a date for the pilot installation. “

The emphasis on presenting the solution as quickly as possible leaves little time to understand the unique nature of the client’s situation. In fact, the standard approach assumes the client has completed some sort of self-diagnosis and, therefore, will be able to connect our solution to the problem.

We all ask many questions during our sales processes, but what type of questions are we asking, and are we establishing exceptional credibility? Let’s consider three levels of questions.

Level one: personal questions about the demographics of the client. So often salespeople ask questions to discover personal facts about clients, and use those facts to tell stories and “relate.” Nothing is wrong with level one questions unless that’s as far as the conversation goes and the engagement doesn’t proceed.

Level two: “opinion” type questions. These questions are designed to find out what the client already knows or thinks. Questions like: “What are your concerns regarding ___?”  “What’s keeping you awake at night?” “How would you like to measure the solution success?” These are the standard questions to gather clients’ views or opinions about the problem, what they think the solution should be, how and when they will be making their decision and, of course, how much money they are planning to invest.

These questions do not expand the client’s thinking about the problem, view of the solution, or our credibility. Again, these are good questions, far better than level one, but very limiting if we stop there and even more limiting if we assume clients’ opinions represent a complete understanding of their own situation and the optimum solution.

Level three: questions to expand the client’s understanding of the problem to be solved and the optimal way to solve it. These are the questions that build exceptional credibility. We expect no less from other professionals, and here’s an example.

Anyone with a healthy net worth knows that it is foolish to write his or her own will. While you may be able to enumerate the goals you want to reach, you would be doing yourself a great disservice to dictate every clause of your will to a lawyer. Rather, you retain an expert in estate law, let him know your objectives and financial situation, and trust that this professional will ask additional important questions you haven’t considered and the end result will be a well-crafted and well-thought-out plan. You would be comfortable that you are being served by a highly credible resource.

Surprisingly, what is clearly unprofessional conduct, and in some cases malpractice in medicine and law, all too often is standard operating procedure for sales professionals. We not only let clients diagnose their own problems, we actually encourage them to do so by asking them to report through “opinion level” questions.

To move the diagnostic process toward revealing and clarifying the problem affecting the client, we need to drill deeper with third level questions, questions about observations.

To illustrate the difference, let’s go back to the chemical plant with the inefficient compressor and lack of proper controls. If you ask, “Are you happy with your production numbers?”—an opinion question—the answer will be “Yes. We’re hitting our production goals and we’re under budget.”  The question “Are you happy with___?” asks the client to draw conclusions and render an opinion based on an implicit self-diagnosis.

Instead, ask questions that call for empirical observation. For example:

“How many unscheduled shutdowns have you experienced during the past two years?” 

“We’ve had around half a dozen.”

“So you’re shutting down two or three times per year?”

“Yes, that’s about right.”

Ask for another observation. “Have you noticed compressor surges prior to any of the shut downs?”

“Why yes, now that I think about it, we have.”

“We’ve been able to develop control algorithms that have worked in other plants. Would it make sense to look a little closer at these shutdowns and see if there would be a possible application in your plant?”

“Well it sure would, but you will have a ways to go to make a believer out of me.”

A key takeaway here is that opinion questions generate answers that more often than not provide a “we’re satisfied” type answer. The observation question allows you, the professional, to access the facts that are relevant to a complete diagnosis. And you’ll notice, as in the above example, that these questions will take the conversation in a totally different direction.

…

Want to read more by Jeff Thull? Visit his author page.

Jeff Thull is president and CEO of Prime Resource Group and a thought-leader in the area of sales and marketing strategies for companies involved in complex sales. He is the author of Mastering the Complex Sale, The Prime Solution: Close the Value Gap, Increase Margins, and Win the Complex Sale, and Exceptional Selling. To learn more, visit www.primeresource.com.