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Good to Great Questions for Hunting Whales: Chapter I 1

How does a card-shark in a poker game get you to put in all of your chips? He makes you think that you are winning.

Whales do the same thing. They get you to put in all of your chips-time, better pricing, free consulting and so on-by making you think that you are winning in a sales process. In the past, we have talked about how expensive it is to hunt whales and how important it is to know if the whale is serious about buying rather than just price-shopping or doing market research. But, often times a whale is playing you to get all of those chips from you, so we need to figure out what the real motivation is and know with confidence if the odds are in our favor. (See: Being Played by a Whale)

If you are going to be successful at Whale Hunting selling-large account, complex deal making-then become a student of great questions.

Great questions have some of the following characteristics:

  1. Specific - Ask questions that drive to the heart of the issue.

  2. Historic - Past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior.

  3. Narrative - Stories give you context and emotion in addition to information.

  4. Behavioral - We want to know what people will do, not just opinions.

  5. Vulnerable - Getting to the authentic person in the conversation.

When crafting questions with these types of characteristics, you are trying to get access to a level of knowledge that is deeper, more indicative and valuable than what your competitor is able to get so you can disqualify opportunities up front with confidence and get out of the hunt if it is not a great opportunity for you. You need to know:
  • Is this a real opportunity or a waste of time?

  • Who is the real decision maker?

  • Can we win if we are not the lowest priced?

  • Am I talking to the right people?

  • What will it take to win this business through my proposal?

The problem is that even though these questions are reasonable and straightforward, you cannot get a reasonable and straightforward answer from a whale for all of the reasons we have explained. So how do you get the information you need? Ask a different question.

For these types of disqualifying questions, we teach 3 shortcuts that you can add to almost any question, to make it a better question.

Learn and Teach - Let's take a sample question that you might ask:

"Are you ready to make a change in suppliers if you find at that end of our discussions that we can do a better job for you?"

Seems like a reasonable question, but the problem is that the natural answer will be YES-regardless of what the facts are. If we're honest with ourselves, we have to admit we have all asked a version of this question only to find out later that we are the better choice, but the prospect stayed with the incumbent. So let's change the question:

"In the last several years when you have made a significant change in suppliers, what did you learn that you are teaching to all of your people?"

First, if they cannot answer this question because they have not changed suppliers in the last few years, it is a warning sign that they probably do not change suppliers very often.

Second, we now have the focused issues that will drive the decision of the buyers. If we can show great benefit in those areas, then we have a great opportunity. If we can't show benefit, we should disqualify this prospect and move on to another whale.

Third, this question meets many of the criteria of great questions. The prospect will have to tell us a story, give us context, probably reveal emotion and be specific.

Always and Never - Very similar in nature to Learn and Teach. This question sets the boundaries. Always tells you the must haves in a proposal, and never tells you the absolute disqualifiers. An example of this type of question is:

"When you are looking at adding a new supplier, what are the qualities they must always have and what are the things that you know are never acceptable to your company?"

With this question, you are establishing the working parameters for your presentation and eventual proposal. Also, you can disqualify those opportunities in which you know you are going to violate one of their key requirements.

Time-binding - It is important to put time-frames around your questions. Business conditions are changing at such a rapid rate that the circumstances under which your prospect was operating just a short 12-18 months ago are not the same now. When you ask general questions about how a company operates, you often get the kinds of answers that are not recent and therefore not helpful. Frame your questions with:

"In the past year, how has your decision process been working?"

"Since the purchase of your company, how are materials purchases like this one being handled?"

"With the re-organization of the department, who now is most impacted by the types of services my company provides?"

By time-binding the questions, you are able to focus the people to whom you are speaking on the most recent and relevant business environment. You also subtly create a sense that a change might be necessary because of the change in conditions. Finally, you are inviting a story-the kind of narrative that can give you greater information and context for the sales process.

If you go to our website; www.huntbigsales.com/new.php, you will find a list of 10 of our favorite sales questions that use some of the ideas discussed here.

The next newsletter in this series on questions, "Good to Great Questions for Hunting Whales: Chapter 2," will discuss a 6th and very powerful characteristic.


— Tom Searcy





Tom Searcy, The Whale Hunters Company, Large Account Sales, Business Growth, Sales Process Development, Fast Growth Strategies, RFPs, Key Account Management, Current Account Growth, Sales Management, Breaking Business Growth Plateau's, Prospecting System, Business Acceptance Process, Sales Management Development, Big Sales, Big Deals, Deal Coaching, Transform your company, Explosive Growth, Whale Hunting

FOOTNOTE: 1 COPYRIGHT 2006-2008, THE WHALE HUNTERS, LLC, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.