Question Framing
Try this: I’m sure you’ll get it real quick but because you’re all such good folks out there, I want you to spell the word ‘folk’ three times. Do it right now in your mind. Spell the word ‘folk’ three times as fast as you can.
Now what do you call the white part of an egg?
What was your answer? Did you say yolk? Really?
Are you asking your prospects the right questions to get to their deepest values and criteria? When we elicit criteria, if we’re doing it right, our prospects don’t understand what they are really giving us.
Asking better questions can give us better, deeper answers.
If I were an adviser and I sat down with a brand new client who has never bought anything from me before would I be crazy enough to ask my prospect, “Would you just tell me the two or three things that you need to hear me say today to make you buy? Just tell me so that we can get this part out of the way. Go ahead. I’m listening.”
It’s absurd. No one would give me that kind of information if I asked it in that way. It’s too blatant. They might ask you to leave nicely or they’d just laugh at you and walk away. However, when we elicit criteria they easily hand it over just like taking candy from a baby. Why one way and not the other? To an extent it’s disguised.
Your prospect does not understand what they’re giving you when you ask this way. They don’t get it. Once in a blue moon you’ll find someone giving you resistance to this, but it doesn’t happen often. Even if they did understand what they were giving us, it is socially correct and absolutely acceptable to find out what they need prior to recommending a product or service. Doctors don’t just prescribe medicine prior to finding out about your history, finding out if you have allergies or without finding out why you’re there to see them. Neither do consultants, lawyers, or sales people. We simply cannot give people any recommendation if we don’t know what they want or need.
The point is that we are setting people’s minds up to enter them and get them to do what we want them to do. We set them going in a direction which we can then interrupt and cause them to immediately, as if it was always so, go along with what we’re saying. (What’s the white part of an egg called?)
When I ask, ‘what’s important about X?’ or ‘if I were a magician and I had a magic wand and I could wave it and get you anything in business you want, what would it be?’ I am listening very intently for where you have the strongest emotional reaction to one of the words that you’re saying.
We’re opening the people’s minds. We’re opening them to their own desires, to their own things.
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