Sales Scripts: Seven Secrets of Persuasion and Influence Secrets 3 & 4: Program Questions and Probing Statements, Benefit Bridges

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Sales scripts are one of the most powerful ways to persuade and influence your prospects. Sales scripts can help transform you into a Master of Persuasion and Influence, only if you know the secrets.

Secret 3: Probing Questions and Probing Statements
Many salespeople agree that asking questions is a key component of discovering the prospect’s needs and making the sale. It is the level of detail and the types of questions asked that separates the average salesperson from a Sales Pro.

Sales Pros write out all the possible questions they would want to ask a prospect and then objectively choose the most effective probing questions and probing statements to use in their sales presentation. The probing questions and probing statements are then scripted for maximum impact. A Sales Pro decides what is the best order to ask those new questions.

Probing questions are fairly self-explanatory and Probing Statements encourage a prospect to reveal other important information that will help the salesperson to close the sale.

Here are two examples of probing statements:
1. “Tell me more about that.” or
2. “Describe to me your investment style.”

A Fundamental Principle of Selling is That People Buy Benefits

Secret #4: Benefit Bridges
A fundamental principle of selling is that people buy benefits. Sales-people, who have been selling for a while, sometimes fall into a trap and feel that the benefits of their product or service are so obvious and self-evident that the prospect will automatically “get it.”

Part of selling is education. Use Benefit Bridges to help the prospects understand how the product or service will help them. The structure of Benefit Bridge looks like this:
[Benefit]    [Benefit Bridge]    [Explanation of how the benefit helps the client]

Here’s how the Benefit Bridge works in action using the above format:
[Benefit]    ”What that means to you is…”    [Explain how the benefit helps the client]

John Kurth
Sales Script Writing Expert

Click here to read Seven Secrets of Persuasion and Influence Secrets Part 1 & 2