The Sales Topic You're Too Scared to Raise

Tariffs, supply chain, trade rules, the environment. Most sellers dodge all of it the way you dodge politics at the dinner table. The best closers raise these on purpose, as business issues, and they do it with one kind of question that keeps the conversation out of the ditch.

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If you prefer to read - here is the transcript:

So here's a big challenge we all face in closing more business today. One of the secrets is that we have to frame our value and what we can deliver in a way that makes the customer feel and realize that you care about the business issues they're dealing with today.

And let's face it, some of those business issues are, or could be, political issues, depending on how they're framed. We're talking about tariffs and supply chain. We're talking about global disruption. We're talking about trade agreements. We're talking about the environment. These are all hot topics, and things that maybe we don't want to talk about. Kind of like religion and politics around the Christmas table, right? We don't necessarily want to bring those things up, because they can get pretty heated pretty fast.

And that's what I notice about the best salespeople, the ones who are excellent at closing tons of deals quickly. They can talk about those issues as business issues and not get political. They stay out of the heated, one sided argument. They raise them in a way that shows the customer they care about the business. They don't shy away from them.

They ask questions like:

• "I know your industry has been hit with tariffs. How are you handling it right now? What are you doing about increasing profits?"

• "How is that affecting your supply chain?"

• "I know your state has some pretty rigorous environmental protections. How is that affecting your business?"

Now, regardless of what the customer says, whether they go off on a tangent, or they're all upset about it, or they just say, "I don't know, it's confusing, this is hard," they let the customer have their say. And then they continue on with solutions that might help.

Now, you might not have a solution for all of the issues your customer is facing. And that's okay. What isn't okay is that we ignore the major issues your customer is facing and thinking about on a day to day basis. Because we want them to know that we care about their business, and that we're thinking about our solution in terms of their overall business context.

So how does that apply to you? I want you to think about these issues, and think about ways to ask questions that drive at the business impact they have, so that you can align your value and have a real conversation with your customer.