Episode 423: What makes a question… a qualifying question?

In today’s episode, I’m going to answer someone’s question as a follow-up from my podcast episode about sales conversations. The question is: What makes a question a qualifying question?

If you’ve checked out my episode about sales conversations, you’ll know that in the sales process, one of the most important things that we need to do is ask quality qualifying questions.

Someone reached out and said, “But how do I know whether it’s a qualifying question or not?”

I think that is such a juicy question, so I wanted to put an episode together for it.

If you missed the episode about my sales conversation structure, or you’d like a refresher, you can find it at: tashcorbin.com/407

Let’s jump into it!

EPISODE 423: Listen using the player below, or click the links to your fave platform to subscribe and listen over there:

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A super quick recap as to why we need to ask qualifying questions:

Qualifying questions are one of the most effective ways to make sales using consent-based practices.

One of the things that I love about my sales process and my sales conversations is that I never pitch something to people unless I know that they’re interested in hearing that pitch.

I never just throw sales pitches at people and disregard whether they’re interested in hearing it or not.

I don’t want to be that person who accosts you as you’re walking through a shopping mall and trying to tell you the benefits of their hand cream when they haven’t even got any clue as to whether I’m interested in hand cream or not.

Because of that, I use qualifying questions – both in my one-to-many marketing and content, as well as in my sales conversations one-on-one.

But not all questions are qualifying questions.

What makes a question a qualifying question is when the answer helps me discern that person’s readiness and suitability for buying something from me.

If I’m talking to someone about the Heart-Centred Business Planning System, and I ask them if they like business plans, and they simply say a non-commital “Yeah”, does that tell me if they’re ready and suitable for the Heart-Centred Business Planning System? Or if they say “No”, does it give me any extra insight? No, it doesn’t.

If I ask that person what their favourite thing about business planning is, and they say that they love having a really solid idea of their goals, again it doesn’t actually tell me if they’re ready and suitable to buy something from me to help them with this.

A qualifying question helps me to discern a person’s readiness and suitability for buying something from me.

If I were going to ask a qualifying question about planning, I instead might say, “What do you think is the number one thing stopping you from consistently implementing your business plan?”

If they say that they’ve never had a plan before and they need one, then that tells me that they need my planning system. Similarly, if they tell me that they write their plan and they’re excited about it for the first couple of weeks but then everything dies off, that also tells me about their readiness and suitability for the Heart-Centred Business Planning System.

It’s giving me insights into what is the gap that they’ve got or what is the problem that needs to be solved, and then I can determine and discern whether my product is actually going to be suitable for them.

In a nutshell, a qualifying question helps you to qualify whether people are ready for the next step towards working with you. Their readiness and their suitability.

Unfortunately, there’s no hard-and-fast formula or rule for how to craft great qualifying questions that works across every different kind of business.

Questions that are great qualifying questions for one niche are ridiculously terrible for others.

It takes practice and discernment to get good at asking qualifying questions.

One of the things I also want to remind you of is that qualifying questions don’t just apply to sales conversations.

You can ask qualifying questions in the emails you send to your mailing list and on your social media in a one-to-many way. This is a way that you can invite your warm leads to connect with you, and in answering the question, they’re self-identifying as potentially being ready and suitable to invest in a paid product of yours.

Using qualifying questions on social media is a brilliant lead-generation strategy when you learn how to ask those questions well.

But as I said, there is no one formula.

What you need to do is practice asking questions on social media and in sales conversations, and learn what insights and questions are most likely to get your ideal clients leaning in and answering more consistently.

There you have it! That’s what makes a question a qualifying question.

The answer helps you discern the readiness and suitability of the person to buy something from you.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, I highly recommend that you check out my sales conversation structure episode if you haven’t already. You can find it at: tashcorbin.com/407

I also recommend checking out my Take Off program.

Take Off is my signature program to help you consistently attract and convert leads from online channels. It is a comprehensive program that includes mentorship and group coaching so that you can get my advice, mentoring and feedback on these types of challenges and strategies in your own business.

Qualifying questions, crafting questions and refining your sales processes are things that we talk about in our group coaching calls very consistently in the Take Off program.

If this is something that you struggle with, I invite you to come and check it out at: tashcorbin.com/takeoff

Thank you so much for joining me for this episode.

Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.