You get on a call with a prospect. You've done your research. You know your product can help them. You have a slide deck ready, maybe a case study. You're prepared.

The prospect asks you to walk them through what you do.

So you do. You walk them through the company, the features, the process, the results. You're thorough. You're professional. You gave your best.

Then you ask: does this sound like something you'd want more of?

And they say: I need to think about it.

That's the moment. Not the follow-up email three days later, not the silence after that. Right there, in that sentence, you already lost the deal, or at least you lost the thread that connects what the buyer wants to what the buyer needs. And that second thing matters more, because you'll never close the deal without it.

Here's what actually happened. You gave a presentation.

There's no presentation in an 8-step sales process built on questions instead of pitches, only questions, stacked in a specific order: rapport, frustration, importance, cost of inaction, deliverables, investment, starting date, statement of work. Eight steps, three powerful questions for each. That's the whole toolkit. No script, no slides, no walking anyone through anything.

Why does that matter? Because presenting isn't creating anything for the buyer. It's telling. And if you're not creating value, safety, and insight in every moment of the conversation, the buyer has other things to do, and they will move on. So they say send me a proposal. You send it. You get ghosted. You follow up. You follow up again. Nothing.

Think about it in a different context. Every doctor you've ever seen didn't hand you medicine the second you described your headache. They asked what your lifestyle looks like. How you're sleeping. How much water you're drinking. Questions you didn't come in to answer, about a problem you didn't know you had, until the questions surfaced it.

Is it kind to just hand over the medicine because that's what was asked for? It's not, not really. Kind is exploring the actual lifestyle behind the symptom, because the symptom isn't the root cause. That's what a professional does. And that's the shift: you stop just listening to what a buyer wants, and you start asking questions about what they need. There's a gap between those two things, and closing it is the job.

So if you want to be a pro in a sales conversation, you take control of the questions you ask, not the answers you give.

If you want help installing this in your own sales process, go to www.strategysprints.com. First 7 days are free, so you can see if it fits before deciding anything.

Happy hunting.

Simon & The Sprinters 🐬🌴🐆