It’s easy to think our job is to provide answers for our prospects and clients. However, the most elite performers know that the real value lies in asking the right questions—specifically, the ones that illuminate a customer’s blind spots.
A blind spot isn’t just something a customer doesn’t know; it’s often something they think they have handled, but are actually miscalculating. Our sales role, properly calibrated, is to act as the side-mirror for their business, helping them see the oncoming traffic they’ve missed.
The High Cost of the “Safe” Choice
To help a customer think more clearly, you have to challenge their internal logic with a perspective they haven’t considered.
Take, for example, the classic unfilled position. We’ve all seen a hiring manager hold out for months because a stellar candidate is asking for $15,000 more than the budgeted salary. On paper, the manager is “saving” the company money.
But let’s look at the blind spot:
- The Calculation: “I’m saving $15,000 by staying firm on the budget.”
- The Reality: While that position sits empty, projects are delayed, existing staff are burning out (leading to more turnover), and potential revenue is evaporating.
- The Question: “If this role generates $200,000 in value per year, and we leave it open for four months to save $15,000, haven’t we actually just spent $66,000 to save $15,000?”
Flipping the Script with Strategic Inquiry
When you identify a blind spot, don’t just point at it—that can make people defensive. No one likes being told about their blind spots. Instead, use leveraged questioning to lead them to the discovery themselves, because if the conclusion comes from their brain, they are very rarely going to argue with it.
| Instead of saying… | Try asking… |
| “You’re losing money by waiting.” | “What is the daily cost of not having this solution in place?” |
| “Our competitor’s price is misleading.” | “How does their maintenance schedule impact your uptime over three years?” |
| “You need to scale faster.” | “If your lead volume doubled tomorrow, where would the system break first?” |
Why This Works
By leveraging our industry expertise to ask these “stress-test” questions, we transition from being a vendor to a trusted advisor. We aren’t just selling a product; we are selling clarity.
The Goal: You want your customer to lean back, pause, and say, “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
In fact, that is the top sign you have created “trusted advisor” level trust. Whenever one of my prospects says something like, “no one has ever asked us that before,” experience tells me that my odds of winning the business has gone to 90% or higher.
This Week’s Challenge:
Look at your top three prospects. What is the one thing they are currently ignoring because it feels “safe” or “cheap”? Draft two questions that highlight the hidden cost of their status quo and try them out in your next discovery call.