In a sales encounter, both sides have something to give. In a traditional encounter, the buyer offers the value of their product or service and asks for payment in return. The seller asks for value and offers payment.
There are other encounters not typically viewed as “sales,” for which the same rules apply.
In recruiting, the candidate asks for salary and offers their skills. The company asks for skills and offers salary.
In dating, both sides are asking for a valuable partner. At the same time, what both sides have to offer, is being a valuable partner themselves.
A sales encounter is never one-sided. Both sides have something to offer, so there is a give and take, a push and pull, as both sides ask questions to figure out the actual value of what the other side is offering.
At the same time you’re asking questions, you must also be making value statements to keep the other party interested and happy enough to tolerate your questioning.
In the initial phone screen of a recruiting encounter, for example, it’s usually the company that starts by asking questions of the candidate. But let’s say the company is a startup that nobody’s ever heard of, then the candidate might be less patient with the questioning.
If they’re a savvy candidate, they might interrupt and ask a few questions themselves: How much funding has the company raised? Who are your backers? Is the company profitable?
Then it’s the recruiter’s turn to show some value. If the candidate, is not impressed by the answers, they might choose to end the call and forego any further questions from the recruiter, because they’ve made a decision that the company is not offering a valuable position.
Recruiters at a well-known company like Google or Goldman Sachs, on the other hand, rarely have this problem. Because the value being offered is obvious to the labor market. Candidates are more willing to endure multiple rounds of interviews and longer timelines with minimal questioning just for a shot at the valuable position.
It’s the same with sales or dating. If the client really wants your product, they’re willing to sit through a longer demo. If you find someone to be attractive, you’re more eager to seem attractive yourself (especially when you have their attention).
To sum it all up in one easy graph, it looks like this:
I call this the ask / offer graph (creatively named). Imagine the red line as a timeline of the sales encounter. As you progress, there are equal amounts of ask and offer at each point.
You cannot ask all your qualifying questions upfront.
You cannot talk only about your own value without asking the other party about theirs.
You cannot talk too much about your value at risk of sounding desperate.
Now, the question from here is WHICH questions do you ask first and WHAT value do you offer upfront.
Which questions are the clear knockouts that you might as well get out of the way. Questions that would disqualify a lead as a potential client or disqualify a candidate as a potential hire.
What value will signal to a buyer that you have what they are looking for in the market. Value that keeps the client interested to sit through your pitch while still saving a trump card to overcome their objections at the end.