How to Close the Sale in an Interview Part II: Getting the Scoop

If you’ve ever felt as though you’ve done a great job of presenting your best to a possible client, and they didn’t hire you, the problem may have been in the qualifying stage of the interview.

It’s natural to want to tell a prospective client about all the great stuff you can do for them, but what if that’s not what they need? Or what if you spent half the time talking about what they need, and the other half about things that they don’t really care that much about? You can have many wonderful qualities and skills, but they won’t close a sale if it’s not what the prospect is looking for.

Your job, after connecting in the beginning, is to ask the client questions to find out what their needs are. People love to talk about themselves, and with a little encouragement from you, they’ll open up and tell you the challenges that prompted them to set up the meeting with you.

Then once you have a clear picture about their needs, look at what you can provide and then only talk about your qualities and skills that meet their needs. That’s the heart of salesmanship in a nutshell.

I can hear the wheels turning in your head, and I know your next question: “But what if that doesn’t leave me very much to talk about?” Ahh. Good question. And it leads us to the second possible reason you aren’t closing as many sales as you’d like:

You may be interviewing with prospects that aren’t good leads for you to begin with! In other words, the problem may not be that you can’t close the sale; it may be that you aren’t getting enough quality leads!

A reasonable, viable lead is someone whose needs are a pretty good match for your abilities. It doesn’t matter how great you are in an interview, you still have to have what the client wants.

If you’d like more information on how to make sure you have what your prospects want, I’ll be posting more articles in the future addressing that issue in detail. I’ll be focusing on the Coach market in particular, so if you like working with Coaches, you’re in the right place!

For now, let’s assume you’re interviewing with viable prospects. So it’s just a matter of asking the right questions, so you can get the information you need to present yourself in the best light.

The best questions are open-ended, which means they can’t be answered yes or no. Open-ended questions encourage people to talk about themselves and give lots of information.

Here is a list of words that open-ended questions start with:

• How
• What
• Why
• When
• Where
• Who (avoid this one unless you can be relaxed and curious with it)
• If
• Tell me about . . .

Do’s and don’ts:

Do make a list of questions you want to ask before the interview. You may not use them all, but have them handy.

Don’t ask multiple choice questions! These are the ones where you say something like “Where do you need the most help? With Marketing? Administration? Avoid offering possible answers.

Do sit back in your chair and adopt a relaxed, confident manner. Be interested and curious.

Don’t be so busy asking your next question that you don’t listen carefully. If the prospect is giving you valuable information, forget the questions until you need them.

Do recap to them what you’ve heard to make sure you understood correctly, before you begin talking about how you can help.

Once you’ve done a great job of showing them how you’re stuff is just what they need, it will be time to address their concerns. In professional sales, these are often called “objections,” or “considerations.” For more information, please check out the next in the series: “Part III: Handling Objections 1.”