Ask “What did you like?” at the end of key prospect meetings

Frustrated by not knowing quite where you stand with a prospect after an initial conversation? Ask a question like this to find out:

“I’m curious, what stood out from our conversation today?”

This gives you a solid chance to find out their true level of interest.

Sometimes we can be so invested in assuming good things that we aren’t hearing the truth about the level of interest from the prospect. Asking them this simple question can remove some of the ambiguity that we are often left with after a meeting or call.

Here are a few different ways you can ask the question:

“I’m curious what, if anything, stood out from our conversation so far.”

“Based on our conversation so far, I’m curious what (if anything) stood out for you.”

“Based on what you’ve heard so far, what did you like about what you’ve heard?”

“To recap, I’m curious if you could share anything that you liked about what you heard so far…and also anything that you didn’t hear that you were hoping to from us.”

(*Remember: You need to manage your time so that you have a few spare minutes for this at the end.)

A question like the above is scary to your ego-mind. It is terrified to hear, “uh, not much”. But even if that’s what they say at least you know where you stand. Plus you’ll get one last chance to turn things around.

Often, we don’t ask this type of question because we don’t want to hear the answer. It also can feel a little bit self-serving. Do it anyway. It is quite helpful to force the prospect to give you some feedback – to summarize what is compelling to them and anything that they are looking for that hasn’t been addressed yet. This is all a part of consultative selling.

This type of question is particularly helpful if there are multiple people on the prospect side of the conversation. Sometimes there are internal politics that keep people from speaking up, but if you ask the question directly of each person, you’re bound to get a more direct answer.

Lastly, this is a helpful question because it helps them sell themselves vs. you having to do all the convincing. Let them meet you halfway in the sales process and show some motivation to change.

Look for an opportunity at the end of an upcoming prospect meeting to ask a version of the question, “What did you like?” and see how it changes the dynamic of your conversation and informs next steps. What do you have to lose?

Onward.

Tom