The hot button close
Written by Jamie May
I remember as a kid on my dad’s sales floor all the reps talking about the ‘hot button’. This is straight out of the Power 80’s, but it’s really the genesis of spin methodology and other sales questioning techniques.
I find these days spin is overused and bloated and prefer to nestle back to good old hot button sales.
It goes that every buyer has a hot button, or a single reason they will buy, the rep needs to press the button. These days it’s more fancy to say ‘people only buy a top 5 right now thing’. Which attributed to one of the pillars of sales Urgency. That’s not quite correct and its more like the why.
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Why are they buying this?
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What’s the single thing that will make them act?
Firstly finding the prospects ‘hot button’ or the specific thing that is going to make them buy. Absolutely there can be a measure of questioning there but these days it should also encompass a healthy amount of prior research which helps shorten the process to find the hot button.
It also involves the ability to pivot on your feet. Just because your sales manager has defined a beautifully scripted one hour questioning process, doesn’t mean you have to drag the prospect through that muck.
They will appreciate you have identified the hot button, pressed it, and can move on to negotiation.
