No agenda. No anxious selling. No need to have all the answers. No clean up needed when you may have pushed a little to hard.
What would happen if you gave potential clients breathing room to really, I mean REALLY trust you?
Could you really sell without force simply by asking Clean Questions that allow the client to find their own conclusion and move forward?
WARNING: IT WILL TAKE PRACTICE!
Most of us come at people wanting them to do what we want them to do. I recently attended a writing and riding retreat in Wyoming where we learned to use energy to connect with a high spirited Arabian. Each of us were instructed to enter the pen with no agenda and let the horse make the decision as to how it would go. When I entered the ring, I tried to clear my mind, but I found myself wanting the horse to come closer, to calm down, to touch my palm. The horse was not having any of it. You see, like most of us, I usually come with an agenda. The horse felt crowded by my wishes and as soon as I became okay with not having the horse do what I WANTED, the horse came closer.
What are Clean Questions? An example would be: “What’s important about that?” When you ask a question like that, you let them tell you their motivation strategy, you let them breath, and they may even tell you whether they are ready to write a contract or not.
There is a difference between open ended questions and clean questions. An open ended question might be, “When were you planning to be in your next home?” This is a fine qualifying question that should be asked, but notice how it starts to narrow the decision making process by asking for a specific answer. The clean question “what’s important about your next home?” opens the space and allows the prospect or client to tell you more.
Start with clean questions and then take your questions to the more specific, who, what, when, and where.
For a list of Clean Questions, send me an email at [email protected] and check out the Now What Do I Say club. Interest in personal coaching? www.yourcoachingmatters.com
