Paul provides tips on asking questions during discovery to encourage a good information exchange.
Show Notes
Direct questions can often be high risk and may turn the buyer off. Try it this way: “What’s important to you when making your buying decisions?”
When the customer brings up price, set it aside. Focus the conversation on the outcomes the customer wants.
If the customer still wants to talk price, call attention to what they’ve said is important to them, then ask, “Is the price you’re willing to pay consistent with the outcomes you want to achieve?”
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When do you ask the customer- Do you want a discount or value?
(Transcribed from podcast)
Today, we are going to the website because Charlie went to the website. Charlie asked us a question. So, this is a reminder, make sure you visit TheQandASalesPodcast.com. While you’re there, you can ask me a question and I will turn it into the show.
All right. Chuck, Chaz, Carl, Charlie—you’ve probably heard them all, alright. Chuck is my favorite, I think. And my, actually, my grandpa was named Charles, so, man, I’m glad you went to the website. So, here’s the situation. Charlie wants to know, “What is the appropriate time on a discovery call to simply ask the customer, ‘Do you want a discount or value?’” And what a great question. Really direct question too, by the way. But we’re going to get into that on today’s episode.
Before we answer that question, Charlie, and along with the rest of The Q and A Sales Podcast community, just a reminder Selling Through Tough Times is available on Amazon, wherever you get your books. And it’s available worldwide as well. You know, as the podcast continues to grow, we’re now in, I think, 80+ countries, you should be able to find it wherever you are in the world. Check it out. One thing we talk in Selling Through Tough Times is how to promote your value during tough and uncertain times, and what customers look for, and how we conduct a discovery call. In fact, we have a whole chapter on discovery, so please, check that out. It’s available wherever you get your books: Amazon Barnes & Noble, Chapters, Porchlight Books. Wherever you get your books, you can find it.
All right, let’s get right back to that question: At what point do you ask the customers, ‘Do you want a discount, or do you want value?’ Charlie, I understand wanting to ask this question, however, there’s a better way to ask this question. I’m a direct guy, so I would certainly like to get a direct response from our customers. But, remember that during the discovery phase, the goal is to create a good information exchange. And this question is a little too direct to do that. When a question is too direct and close ended, we’ve got to remember that that is a high-risk question. It’s high risk because the buyer may perceive this as threatening. They may feel like they’re going to have to defend their position. They put their guard up. And in some ways, we’re kind of forcing their hand with this question. And if they feel forced, if they feel like they’re being interrogated, or if they’re getting pushed into a corner, they’re not likely to share openly and honestly with us.
So, the question you have here—it’s a good question—we just need to work on how we ask the question—the information. We need to be a little more indirect. Because, again, our goal here is to have a good, fruitful exchange with our customer. So I’m going to give you a few other suggestions and indirect ways to ask this same question.
So rather than asking, “Hey, are you looking for a discount or are you looking for value,” ask the question this way, “What’s important to you when making your buying decision?” This question is less direct, it’s open-ended, and it gives the customer a little more freedom to answer. And while we’re gathering this information, it can also help us understand how they define value—what’s important to them when making that decision.
Now, when you ask this question, there is a chance that the customer could say, “Price is going to be one of the main things that I’m looking for. I want to make sure that I’m getting a good deal.” So when the customer then talks about price, we can do a couple of things. We can set it aside. We can say to that customer, “You know, I understand price is going to be one of your decision factors. But putting price aside for a moment, in addition to that, what is important to you? What is important to you when making this decision?” If you can set it aside, that’s going to help get past that pricing conversation, or at least delay it a little bit so you can focus more on value. Because if you focus on price too early in the conversation, that tends to run the rest of the conversation. So I would set price aside, and you can do that, again, by saying, “What’s important to you when making this decision?” And if the customer does say price is going to be an important factor, set it aside.
The next question I would ask the customer is, “What are the three most important outcomes you want from this solution?” This focuses the conversation on what they stand to gain versus what they have to sacrifice. You’re focusing on outcomes. Outcomes are what’s really going to compel that buyer to act and to invest in your solution. So I would ask them, “What are the outcomes you’re looking for?” And something happens when you focus the conversation on outcomes, right? The buyer tends to look into the future. They’re in a better state of mind than the present. In the present moment, they focus on what they have to sacrifice to gain your solution. But when you’re focusing on outcomes, they’re looking into the future and what they achieve. And as they focus in the future, they’re less likely to focus on price.
So again, the first two questions:
- What’s important to you when making this decision? and
- What are the three most important outcomes you want from this solution?
Now that you have a clear understanding of the customer’s needs, now you’ve earned the right to ask a little more directly what’s important to them and is it more important than price. And here’s how we do this. As the customer does bring price into the conversation and they claim that your price is too high or, that they can get it cheaper somewhere else, here’s how you can ask the final question. This question gets to your original question, which is, “Do you want discount, or do you want value?”
Here’s the question, “Mr. Customer is the price you’re willing to pay consistent with the outcomes that you’re trying to achieve?” So, think about this. When the customer says, “Hey, I, you know, I could get this cheaper somewhere else? Price is going to be important to me.” We just say, “Look, Mr. Customer, just to review, here’s what you said you wanted. Here’s what you said you’re looking for these outcomes: outcome 1, 2, 3,” (and then you rattle them off) and you just say, “Is the price you’re willing to pay consistent with the outcomes that you’re trying to achieve?” And what you’re doing is you’re calling attention to what they said they really wanted—what’s important to them. And by doing that, you can help take the focus off of price. And this is going to shift the buyer’s mind just a little bit. It’s a little bit less direct. It’s not as high risk as that previous question.
All right, Charlie. That’s my advice for you. I hope this helps. Please report back. Send me another email, if you would, if you use these techniques. I’d love to hear your thoughts and how it worked out for you. So, Charlie, again, thank you for going to the website again, TheQandASalesPodcast.com. Thanks for going there and asking a question.
Make it a big day.
