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Hello, Renee Hribar here, and welcome to The “S” Word LIVE. My name is Renee Hribar and I am a TEDx speaker, sales strategist and author. And my goal today is to make sales simple and fun. And so I’m actually holding my notebook today, but somebody totally busted me, they’re like, well, why do you do jazz hands and I’m like jazz hands? I don’t do, do I? And then I realized I think I do. But you know what? So what? It’s all happening organically. So it is… I am who I am. Didn’t Popeye used to say that? So if you are brand new here, say hello as you join The “S” Word LIVE is a show that I do every single week. And it’s meant to help give you some free sales training. I work with thousands of people. I’ve helped thousands people sell millions of dollars over the course of my career. And my goal is to help kind of take away the stigma and make it a little bit more of a fun, easy thing. And that’s why I think my personality fits this. And I’ve been doing it for so long now, I can’t separate it. So ultimately, if you’re ready to have some fun, it’s so high noon on Wednesday, I am ready to give it to you. Today, I’m talking about something that I talk about a lot in a lot of different ways.
So if you’ve hung out with me for any length of time, you probably have heard me talk about good salespeople have a good pitch, whereas great salespeople ask great questions. Have you ever heard me say that before? Good salespeople have a good pitch. Great salespeople ask great questions. And so for a majority of the women that I work with today, they are business professionals who for many reasons have chosen to hang up their own shingle, become a consultant or a coach or a strategist in their field of expertise. So they’re truly experts at what they do. They’re not they’re not Googling the answers. Right? They’re not Dr. Google. They know how to do the thing that they’re consulting on, that they’re coaching on, that they’re giving you the strategy with. The challenge that many of them face. And this is where I meet them, is that they’ve never sold for themselves before. They were working for a company that valued their opinion and valued their experience and paid them handsomely and probably are still recruited, probably knowing my clients, they’re getting hits on LinkedIn all the time, asking them if they’re available for dates, and they say yes for consulting dates. So many of my clients have left their corporate role at said company and then gotten brought back in as a corporate consultant at the same company for more. Love it.
Ok, so when it comes to sales, asking great questions is the key. But there are some big mistakes that I want you to avoid when asking these questions. So let’s talk about those today. Tell me, are you ready to hear about these big mistakes that you can avoid when asking questions? Tell me yes or no in the comments, and I will share them with you. So the number one thing is this, is that as we go approach the asking questions phase of the sales process and sales can be a puzzle. It doesn’t have to be mysterious. A lot of times, you know, the pictures on the box, you just got to follow along. So tell me if you have ever been concerned about the type of questions or worried that your questions weren’t the right questions. So let me know in the comments that you’re listening, and please share this with a friend. If they are truly in the online space or even in the offline space where they have to sell for themselves, if they’re a lawyer, a real estate agent, a doctor, a coach or consultant, and they have to be the one who truly discovers if this person who’s approaching their business is the right fit, then this specifically will help them. So the number one thing is when you approach the question asking process, there has to be a very specific way that you approach it.
Ok, so for example, the doctor comes in the room, if you’re sick, you have a problem, you have an issue, and you go to the doctor to ask for help. You come in. The doctor’s not like, hey, how are you doing? So what have you been up to? I mean that you’re sick. You have a problem. You have an issue. So the doctor says, I’m glad you’re here. Thank you for coming to your appointment. Well, I’ve got twenty minutes and we’re going to find out. We’re going to do some diagnostics. We’re going to I’m going to ask some questions and do some tests, and then we’ll have some answers for you. Right. Or I’ll offer you some possible protocols or I’ll offer you some possible solutions. Have you ever heard, been in the room, or been the person, been the patient where this has been taking place? Let me know in the comments. Yes or no? You’ve been sick. You’ve been ill. You go to the doctor, the doctor comes in and the doctor issues the question portion of the interaction as listen or he frames it out. We’re just going to ask a couple questions. Take a few tests and then we’ll be able to give you our best suggestion.
Awesome. So the doctor comes in. He is an expert. He doesn’t have to prove to you that he knows what he’s doing and. Ultimately, though, what does he also have around him? He has his degrees, right, he has his white jacket on or she, I know my doctor is a girl and it has his name on it or her name on it. And they’re taking notes, right? So they’re taking notes. The doctors come in, his degrees or her degrees are on the wall, the white coat is on. So they’ve presented themselves, as they’ve been told to do, which is professionally, clearly, and with the intention of getting to the bottom of the issue. Right. What is the problem? What is happening inside of your body that’s making you ill or making you sick, that’s making you come to the doctor’s office? Say hello as you join. So whether it’s live or on the replay, let me know, because this is huge. I could talk about this for months. In fact, for the women that are in my Sell Like a Mutha’ program, we do talk about this for months for the people that are in my mastermind. We talk about this for years sometimes because it truly is so vital to the ability for you to find and connect with your next paying client.
It is such a vital piece right here. So I’ve gone into the first part, which is come into the room and truly own the fact that you are an expert. You are professional. You know the deal. You know what’s happening and your goal is to help that person. Right. We’re on the same page. When the doctor comes in. I want you to have three specific things going on in your mind, like the doctor does. Number one, to be curious. Number two, to be skeptical. And number three, to remove yourself from the actual answer, from whatever they say. Don’t let that affect your emotions up or down. Because if a doctor’s like, oh, you’ve got swollen glands, hey, nurse, we got another swollen glands case, put that down. No. Right. Because that would be weird. And it would be weird, too in many of our cases, someone comes to us, they have a question, they have a problem. We have to ask the right questions and come at it in the right way. So number one be curious. So let’s review these. To be curious, I need to know a little bit about the person to be able to be curious about the right things. Right. So if I go to the doctor’s office because I have a knee issue, I don’t go to the ear, nose and throat, doctor. Right. So curious, skeptical, emotionally remove yourself from their answer.
So I’m going to the right doctor. So if I have a problem with my sales, I’m not going to a mindset coach necessarily. I mean, yeah, mindset is great. It’s great to have you know what makes me happy and gets my mindset right, is making money and connecting with the right people who need me. So that’s just me. Tell me where you are on the globe. I’m always like so curious of where people are. Totally like a traveler. So being curious, asking the right questions. So if I have a knee problem, the doctor’s not also asking me about my eyesight. Right? He’s asking me about my knee. What happens when my knee moves in a certain way? What activities have I been up to lately? He’s asking the correct question. So when you come in, be curious and be curious about the right things. So do a little bit of due diligence. Do a little bit of research. Google. Thank you. Itunes. Youtube. I had one client who had a prospective, a prospect, a prospective person, and the person’s name was spelled J-A-N-I-S. And this client of mine thought it was a woman. It was a man. And the only reason we knew that, because all we had was the name was because I was searching Google, YouTube and iTunes.
I found a YouTube channel with this guy. I’m like, no, no, it’s it’s Janis, not Janice. Totally rocked because it made such a difference. You don’t want to be called a woman if you’re a man, right. So be curious, but be curious at the right questions. Number two, being skeptical. What does that mean exactly? So here’s the thing, is that most of the people that have a problem, they don’t really know how to describe their problem. So you’ve heard this, I’m sure, before is ask the question, beneath the question, beneath the question being skeptical of the fact that even if they do know exactly what their problem is, chances that they’re just going to divulge everything right up front. Slim. It’s human nature to hold some of our cards close to our chest. Right. They want to possibly hold back some information because they want to potentially leverage that later for negotiations, which we can get to in another livestream. So being skeptical means that knowing that their answers, even if you’ve got the right questions, are going to need more questions. So whatever answer they have, oh doc, my knee kind of, you know, hurts when I move it, when I’m playing soccer, especially when I go to make that strike right into the strike zone.
He says, Ok, so have you changed shoes? Great question. So if you were on the phone with someone or in a discovery process and you ask a great question, and this is how, you know, they’re going to say. Great question. Keep that question around, because that’s a great question. That’s how, you know, you’re on to something. And so I say great question, Doc, I actually did get new shoes recently. He’s like, did you switch brands? Did you switch places? Yeah, the place I used to get my soccer shoes. They went out of business and I had to go to Zappos. I’m not sure if it’s the right kind. He’s like, did you have inserts? And like I did have inserts before. Maybe that’s the problem. So as opposed to going straight for orthopedic surgery, the doctor might advise me of a different solution. He doesn’t care either way. He just knows he’s going to be on a journey with me to help. Right. So he’s going to uncover the problem beneath the problem, beneath the problem. He’s going to figure it out with me. That makes him valuable, even if he doesn’t end up solving it tomorrow or today. And it wasn’t a quick fix. I know that I’m on the path to recovery just by getting on the phone with him or going into his office and answering my questions, answering his questions.
So when you’re trying to discover if the person you’re talking to is the right candidate, you want to be curious. You ask the right questions. You got to be skeptical. Ask more questions based on their questions. And number three, you’ve got to remove yourself from the answer, because if their answer, whatever it might be, causes your enthusiasm or your energy to go up or down, that’s going to crush whatever you’ve got going on, because as soon as you start getting excited. Oh, they said they’re excited. They want to do a program. Ooh. So as soon as you started getting excited about their answers, it changes everything. It changes the dynamic between the two of you. And then all of a sudden you become the person who’s answering the questions, not the person who’s asking them. And I want you to own the fact that your expertise is worth paying for. It is worth offering either in a program or a service. And so I really want you to understand that when you approach someone, the energy I don’t want you to have is, oh, I hope they like me. Oh, I hope that they have the right answer so that I can offer them that thing that I want to offer them. Instead, I want you to say, you know what, I have some great experience.
I have some great knowledge, and I know I can help the right person solve these very specific complex problems. However, I need to know if they’re the right person for me. So I’ll be the one asking questions, not because I’m trying to control or power anyone, but because I know my own power. And so it truly, truly is about having that sense that I know that these right questions are going to help me help the right person, so that I’m not begging, hoping, wishing that they’re going to hire me instead we’ll be making the decisions together. And when I present those possible solutions, whether it’s, hey, I’ll call you next month or, great, let’s work together in an intensive or, hey, there’s a great program I have, or wonderful, let’s do one on one work for the next six months. Whatever those possible solutions are, it doesn’t matter to you because, you know, it’ll always continue the conversation. If I’ve handled my questions right. So I’m excited to have shared this with you today. I hope that this piece of information makes you feel better about sales, because sales does not have to be hard. And truly, if you are in business for yourself, there are very few things you have to master. Sales is one of them. So have a great day. Happy Wednesday. I’ll see you back here next Wednesday. Bye!
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“Good salespeople have a good pitch. Great salespeople ASK Great Questions”