TI: The Most Important Question

At the end of your first appointment with a propsective customer, there is one question that you cannot leave without asking. In fact, you must be preparing through the entire meeting to ask it. You can ask it in a variety of ways. Although you will usually ask it at the end of your discovery, you can really ask it anytime. But this question will determine how you proceed. The question is:
What will be the most important thing to you in deciding if it makes sense to switch to our service?

Here's a big secret - they will not always say price!

Once they give you an answer, it is very important to qualify and/or quantify it. For example, if they simple say: "service." You would then ask: "What do you mean by service?" When they say: "I just want to be sure that the service is reliable." You would say: "So if I can show you some ways that our service is reliable, is that what you're interested in?"

If they say: "price." Then you should always start high: "When you say price, would you say that if our price is 10 -15% higher but we're able to provide you with some of the extra benefits we spoke about today, would that be worth it to you?" Or you might say: "What kind of price would be worth it to you?"

After you get 1 or 2 repsonses, try to get one more. The when you leave with 2-3 responses of what is going to be the deciding factors in them making a decision to go with you, you can ask, in whatever way is comfortable for you: "If I'm able to address "1, 2, and 3" (restate in their words what these were), is there any reason we wouldn't be able to do business?"

By asking this question, you will, with almost perfect certainty, be able to know if this is prospective customer will become a new customer.