How salesmen trick you into being honest
The 3 Magic Words
Greetings from Hamburg, Germany — June 2nd, 2023
Hey, what’s up?
Today I’m gonna teach you a dead simple language pattern which causes people to be more honest with you so that you can have deeper and more meaningful conversations.
Recently, I started a high ticket closer role.
It’s for two guys who I’ve followed for a long time, so it’s fun to see how they operate behind the scenes. Anyways, they’re more writing guys than sales guys, so instead of creating our training, they paid $68,000 to get access to Cole Gordon’s Mastermind & 7-Figure Selling Academy.
Here’s the most actionable change I’ve adopted to my everyday speech since starting sales:
The Power of Probing Questions
You see, when you ask someone a question, they tend to give you a surface-level answer.
But that’s a problem because we’re searching for objective reality, not convenient smokescreens. And so, the simple trick to find out what’s really going on is to use probing questions. Here’s how I used it on my coworker at school the other day:
Me: Hey, how was your first period?
Her: Difficult.
Me: Difficult, in what way?
And suddenly, she went on to tell me a WILD story…
During a debate about the gender pay gap, the class formed into two fractions - one who believes it exists and needs to be fixed, and one who believes it’s politically manufactured propaganda, until finally, a 14 year old girl left in tears.
And she tried to sum all that up with “difficult.”
In the past, I might’ve just stopped at “difficult” to appease the negative energy.
“Gotcha, yeah Mondays, am I right?"
But by simply asking and giving her permission to tell me more, she opened wide up.
That’s the power of probing questions.
Here’s how you can apply this:
In Cole Gordon’s 7 Figure Selling Academy, he offers a few probing questions which consistently open people up:
Tell me more
Did I just hear you say ____
(Repeat last three words as a question)
How do you mean that, exactly?
In what way?
The questions are simple enough. But I’ve been blown away by how deeper your conversations go when you invite people to tell you more.
And so, when someone gives you a short answer, follow up with one of these simple probing questions. Or when you notice a particular word full of emotion, probe one layer deeper.
“Did you say security? In what way though?”
If you give it a try, I guarantee it will lead to deeper, more impactful conversations.
Thank you for reading.