6 Critical Steps That Can Double Your Sales

Secrets Behind Asking The Right Questions

“Ineffective sales people try to close; effective sales people create a dialog”

Questioning is in fact one of the most important aspects of the sales process, helping you not only to understand your customer but to leave behind the most powerful emotion, the customer feeling understood.

Imagine that you went into a doctor’s office with back pain. How would you feel if he/she came into the room, took a quick glance at you, did not care to create a dialog regarding your situation and proceeded to prescribe you some medicine? For a doctor questioning is crucial for a proper diagnosis, the same holds true for a mortgage brokers. Simply prescribing a mortgage without diagnosis will also leave an unsettling emotion with the client, creating the need to shop around.

Highly skilled salespeople will understand that in order to sell a product you must not only truly understand your client and their desires, but more so the client needs to feel their emotions are validated, be it fear or excitement; this is the most powerful way of setting yourself apart from your competition.

Where effective questioning is most beneficial to the mortgage broker is during the clients shopping phase. It is likely that any client will seek more than one opinion when it comes to looking for their mortgage. It is your job, through effective questioning; to make the client feel that you are the only place they need to go to fulfill their mortgage needs. This can only be done by building a dialog as opposed to simply probing. Ideally you want to have your client speak from their emotions.

We make decisions based on emotions and then justify them based on logic.

First and foremost, effective questioning allows you to receive information through a dialog, which the competition would not likely have received. Taking them through this process allows the clients mind to slowly but surely open up, then and only then will they be willing to share information they have not with others, giving you the cutting edge.

Secondly, effective questioning will allow you to truly understand what your client’s expectations are. Then and only then can you strategize to exceed their expectations.

Step One: Existing Scenario

In order to sell anything to a client you must know their existing Scenario. This is especially true in the mortgage industry. It is true that you must know your clients current job, their current salary, their current credit score, but more so we need to take the time to understand their current state of emotions. Your clients are in the process of making one of the biggest buying decisions of their life; only if their emotions, be it fear or excitement, are validated will they insist on working with you.

Step Two: Emotional History

Most decisions in life are based on their emotional history, thus making past satisfaction or dissatisfaction very critical to your clients. The key here is finding out what the client liked and what they didn't like about the financial institutions, mortgage brokers, or the mortgage products they have received in the past. Remember, if the client has never had a mortgage they definitely know someone that has, therefore they already have perceptions and expectations, which may influence the way in which they interact with you.

The importance in this step is in the creation of the feeling that you are truly interested in getting the client a product or service that exceeds what they have received in the past. Reasonable questions here include “tell me about your past experiences in trying to get a mortgage?” or “What did you like about the mortgage process you received in the past?” Here is where the true dialog starts, opening up their minds and emotions. Let them play the role of a patient given the opportunity to tell their new doctor how they really feel about their past experiences.

Step Three: Ideal Situation

Now that they have been engaged in a dialogue, their minds have been opened and trust is starting to build. Most who do not take the time to go through the first two stages, in essence become nothing more then walking brochures of redundant information.

In step three you give the client the opportunity to waive their magic wand. This is your client’s opportunity to tell you exactly what they are looking for.

To this point at no time have you talked about yourself or the competition; you want your client to focus on a dialogue of their desires. Once we mention ourselves or the competition the clients guard goes up and they will not be as free with their true thoughts and emotions.

Step Four: Gap

Now that you're aware of the existing scenario, emotional history of the client and their ideal situation you can begin to find out what your client is not getting that they wish to have. You are finding the gaps in their situation and thus displaying to them that you have their best interest in mind. This will again set you apart from your competition.

Step Five: Consequences of The Gap.

We usually do not feel the implications of a paper cut, but if salt were poured into our wound the pain would heighten to a point where we feel the need to heal it. In this step we heighten the implications of not dealing with us by pouring salt in the voids of their desired situation.

In this step you want to discuss the consequences of the gap. Through this process they are at the moment living the frustration they would go through if the events actually took place. Showing the client the consequences of ignoring or not realizing that void will give them a much stronger reason to deal with you.

Remember, our focus is on one of two things; address the problems or voids your client has or get them to have the problem you address. Your clients will only buy solutions to problems they have? In that case heighten the consequences of not dealing with you.

Through these first five steps you have yet to talk about your product but you have built a dialog that has allowed your clients to speak from their emotions, and shown that you understand their needs and their interests, in turn building trust. Our job is to insure that the clients feel understood, then and only then will they not go to the competition. Now with the information and credibility you have uncovered you can move on to the sixth and final stage.

Greatest human need is to be understood.

Step Six: Sell It

Step six gives you the chance to do what you do best, sell. Armed with relevant information and better information than the competition you have the ability to place the best possible solution with the client, and ultimately turn that client into a referral mechanism.

Now you are giving them compelling value.

Rates are what clients pay. Compelling Value is what clients get.

Starting a conversation by discussing price is already an uphill battle. Without a frame of reference for the value, no matter how low the rates, those rates will always seem too high to your clients. And someone will always offer a lower rate than yours.

Alter that decision-making process by replacing their pricing focus with something more meaningful — compelling value.

We need to understand and relate to clients in order for them to be loyal to us.

Get to know your client’s concerns and fears. Think of new ways to diminish or eliminate those concerns.

Most clients make decisions based on emotion and then use logic to rationalize those decisions. If your clients feel that you understand their needs, they will choose you, so base your sales process on the question, what emotions are your clients going through when they are looking to borrow.

Make the client your main focus, appeal to their emotions, build loyalty, and leave the price talk until they understand how you can fulfill their needs.

Doing something different gets to the heart of the matter.

It’s the only way to change buying behavior.