Craig McConnell, President PrintGrowPro, Inc.

You’ve developed and adhered to your prospecting plan religiously. You’ve worked your way through the gate keeper. You’ve avoided voice mail hell. You’ve actually gotten the prospect on the phone, established some rapport, qualified him, gotten some personal information, uncovered some pain and he has indicated a willingness to take some time to talk with you. You’ve successfully set up that all important ‘face to face’ meeting. You’ve brushed your teeth, shined your shoes, brushed the lint off your shoulders, checked your ’gig’ line, made sure you have business cards, and you’re sitting down in front of the prospect.

Now what???????????

When you are in these early stages of the relationship you’ve got to have 10-15 good questions prepared, written down, and ready to go. The quality of your questions will dictate the quality of the relationship.

You’re looking for pain and problems.

All great sales people are smart, and smart sales people ask smart questions. In an ideal situation, they ask questions a prospect has never been asked before.

I try hard to do that in my business. Here are some of the questions I ask; the goal being to get my prospects to think about their current situations and perhaps uncover some pain.

*How successful is your sales team in converting cold calls into face to face meetings? How do you measure?
*What are you doing to insure the professional development of your sales team? How do you measure their progress?
*What percentage of your sales team made their numbers in 2009? How much new business did they develop?
*Are there things you are doing differently in 2010?

Just for kicks, I went on line to see if I could find any examples of what might be considered ‘bad’ (dumb?) qualifying questions. A few of the ’best’ are attached below. Hopefully, you’ve ever used any of them. What kind of answers might they generate?

*Would you like some information on our company and what we do?
*If you thought our company could help you improve efficiency and quality at the same time, would you want to know more?
*Can you tell me a little bit about your business?
*Can I quote on some of your upcoming projects?

Always put yourself in the prospects shoes. If you heard one of these questions would you open up (“WOW, I glad you asked; I was hoping to take the time to share this kind of information with someone that I am meeting for the very first time.”), or, would you very politely move to terminate the meeting?

If you don’t already have them, start making your list of SMART questions today; questions that find pain, get personal data, identify needs, and differentiate you from the competitors.

Have a great week, go sell something and remember, the answer to any question you never as is always going to be ‘no’.

For more information on PrintGrowPro, Inc. please visit www.printgrowpro.com.