How presumptuous!

Pain is the big compartment. But how do we open up on the areas we want to talk about? Simultaneously how do we big up our “USPs” without setting ourselves up as pushy and arrogant?

Presumptive questions is the answer

Ask something as if they are using our service already.

For example for a quantity suveyor

“When your expert witnesses act in the High Court, what sort of success rate do you get?” knowing full well 90% expert witnesses have no High Court experience- but the solicitor should be using one that does or he risks practicing on a big client!

And even better for a component supplier

“When you find that a component on the shelf for a year does not function, what warranty does your supplier give on that?” knowing full well most only give 90 days, and he will give 10 years if necessary!

(these are real examples by the way!)

Our prospect has no idea about a better world and if we try “features and benefits” he will dismiss it without feeling that twinge of PAIN ready for us to take them down the pain funnel

Please have a go writing our own.  (If you want to pass them by me, feel free.) We need to remind ourselves that tone is everything. We must remember

• Nurture, nurture, nurture
• Gentle
• Genuine curiosity

Or this just degenerates into a cynical move.

In fact is this manipulative?

No. We are not criticising the prospect, we are assuming they have made good choices and we are not saying how wonderful we are, just letting them work out for themselves the consequences of not using our services. If these things are not important, then fine.

“but I don’t suppose it’s important that you don’t have a way of embedding change into your organisation. Didn’t think so.” There’s no corner to box yourself into.

So the reasons we won’t use these questions right now

Forget

Not comfortable

When you put them down in your Pre-Call planning sheet, how easy is it to remember the specific presumptive question?

(Yes, I know you spotted it- but that’s because we are shining a bright lamp at it)

If you want to know how this all sits in a conversational style process, please contact me.