The 3 Best Questions To Ask A Prospect

Craig — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 16:49:12 +0000

This blog post contains 3 items:

Form fill follow-up strategies – The three best questions to ask
2011 webinar schedule – One every month of 2011
Trigger Buzz #6 – Tuesday January 4th Â @ 6:00PM Pacific

Form Fill Follow-up Strategies

Since no one won the $1,500 prize by providing suggestions on how to follow up on leads generated when someone completes a web form to access Â information or a resource – E.g. an EchoQuote self-serve pricing form, a webinar recording, a white paper, or preview chapters of a book – here is my perspective on the three best questions to ask when following up on web leads.

MIT’s lead follow up research shows how you are 100X more likely to reach the person who filled in the form when you follow up in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes â€“ The report has some other enlightening information and can be downloaded from InsideSales.com.Â So if you are going to follow up on web leads do so as fast as possible.

What questions should you ask when you follow up?

I answered that question by first asking – What are the most important things to learn?

For me the three mostÂ importantÂ things I want to learn are:

Did they get the resource they requested?
What made them fill in the form?
Is there a sales opportunity?

In todayâ€™s world of a million and one different spam filters you can never be sure that the email your systems automatically send out get into the recipientâ€™s inbox. So, my first question is â€œDid you receive the email with the link to download the resource?â€

Iâ€™m always curious what they saw or heard that made them willing to provide their email address and phone number in return for access to what is being offered. So, my second question is â€œWhat made you say it was worth taking the time to complete the form to access the resource?â€ This question is still a littleÂ lengthyÂ and cumbersome so if I’d love to hear if you have a shorter or better version of this question.

My last and perhaps most important questions is to learn which buying mode the person is in so I can learn if there is a pursuable sales opportunity.

I firmly believe that theÂ statisticsÂ of those who fill in forms are similar to those who register for webinars. Patrick Cahill Â - who is the a speaker in the June webinar “How to best use webinars as a lead generation tool” – writes in an article “How to Pinpoint Real Sales Opportunities with Your Webinars“:

People who register for events fall into four categories: immediate opportunities (5%) and short-term leads (20%), long-term leads (50%), and perfectly nice people who will never buy related services (25%).

So my last question is â€œWhat happened recently that made it more relevant or more important?â€

If I learn they recently experienced a ‘Want’ Trigger Event and are in the Window of Dissatisfaction I ask permission to ask a few more questions so I can understand what problem they are trying to solve or what outcome they are trying to accomplish and then pursue the sale.

If I learn they recently experienced an “Afford” Trigger Event and are Searching For Alternatives Â I ask permission to ask a few more questions so I can understand who they are already talking to and how I canÂ positionÂ myself as the least risky alternative.

If I learn they have not recently experienced a Trigger Event and are in the buying mode of Status Quo and believe they have money, authority, and influence I start fostering a relationship while raising their expectations.

I use to ask the question “Where did you hear about this resource?” but I added that to my forms so I can focus on what I think are the three most important questions when I get them on the phone.

2011 Webinar Schedule

I received so much positive feedback from the webinars I did in the last half of 2010 that I am putting together a series of webinars for every month in 2011 (except July and August). The first webinar is scheduled for January 25th @ 9:00AM PST | 12:00PM EST. All other webinarsÂ will be scheduled for the 2nd Tuesday of the month at 9:00AM Pacific | 12:00PM Eastern.

Each webinar will feature a second presenter and a technology solution you can use to implement the insights shared by myself and the second speaker.

You can see the current schedule for January to June atÂ http://TriggerEventWebinars.com

So far I have speakers and technologies for the January to June webinars. Please contact me by phone (+1.403.874.2998) , Skype (Craig.Elias) email (Craig.Elias@ShiftSelling.com) or thisÂ contact form if you have a speaker or a serice you would like to see included in the September – December webinars.

TriggerBuzz #6

Tuesday January 4th â€“ from 9:00PM-9:30PM Eastern (6:00PM-6:30PM Pacific) is the sixth edition of TriggerBuzz.

Get your prospecting questions answered by following @TriggerBuzz on Twitter. To submit your questions, once I follow you back, you need to send a direct message to @TriggerBuzz.

Details and instructions can be found atÂ ShiftSelling.com/TriggerBuzz

Have an eventful New Years Eve!

Craig

Sales 2.0 Conference and Book Launch in Boston

Craig — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 04:05:54 +0000

This blog post is about three things:

My Trigger Event Sellingâ„¢ session at the Sales 2.0 Conference in Boston on June 28^th
The upcoming book launch for the Trigger Event Sellingâ„¢ book SHiFT!
A three-part,Â no-charge, webinar series on how to harness Trigger Events to turn prospects into customers

Boston

I will be speaking at the Sales 2.0 Conference East on June 28^th in the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel.

I speak from 3:15 to 4:15 on how to Find Hidden Opportunities & Shorten Sales Cycles by Harnessing Triggers Events.

During that session I will:

Detail some of my latest Trigger Event Sellingâ„¢ strategies
Provide information on a number of creative Trigger Event alert options
Give away 80 copies of the preview version of my upcoming Trigger Event Sellingâ„¢ book SHiFT! Harness The Trigger Events That TURN PROSPECTS INTO CUSTOMERS
Share information of my upcoming three-part,Â no-charge, webinar series with Tibor Shanto, the co-author of my book.

Call or text my cell phone number (+1.403.874.2998) if you are attending the Sales 2.0 Conference and would like to connect in person at the conference.

Book Launch

Now that my Trigger Event book SHiFT! has gone through the final approval processes with the publisher and the logistics company, it should be added to all the major online and offline book stores by late August or early September.

With endorsements from Steven M.R. Covey, Keith Ferrazzi, Dr. Ivan Misner, Gerhard Gschwandtner, Tim Draper we look forward to helping forward thinking sales and marketing professionals grow sales faster by harnessing Trigger Events to get in front of highly motivated decision makers at EXACTLY the right time.

Not wanting to wait until September to launch the book, 80 copies of the preview version of the book will be available to participants of the Trigger Event session at the Sales 2.0 Conference in Boston and the first five people who call and share a success story about how they used Trigger Events to close a big sale. If you get my voice mail be sure to leave a message.

Three Part Webinar Series

On Tuesday July 13^th Tibor Shanto and I will be delivering the first of three webinars (one each on the three major types of Business-To-Business Trigger Events).

The first webinar “Exploiting Untapped Opportunities: 3 Strategies for Using Executive Sales Triggers” will share insights into the many Business-To-Business sales opportunities created by a single executive change and discuss unique strategies to gain an unfair advantage over your competition when executive changes happen.

Each one-hour webinar starts at 1:00PM Eastern / 10:00AM Pacific on the 2nd Tuesday of every month – July 13^th, August 10^th, September 14^th.

Stay tuned for registration links for the other two on webinars.

Have an Eventful week!