Nailing killer question

When international speaker, Philip Hesketh, was asked to road test a new Nissan 370Z he jumped at the chance. But he didn’t buy the vehicle because he wasn’t asked the ‘number one killer question’.

“It was a beautiful thing! The salesman gets out and says: ‘It does naught to sixty in so many seconds’. The rep said the internal combustion engine was this, that and the other… and I’m just thinking ‘ask me the question, fella, ask me the one killer question and you’ll find out if I want to buy the car’.”

Hesketh was speaking at The Executive Connection (TEC) forum held recently in Auckland. The moral of his story was to show that asking or failing to ask the ‘killer question’ could be the difference between making or missing a pitch which would ultimately result in a successful sale or agreement.
From the beginning of his presentation Hesketh had the audience’s attention starting with the grand statement: “I’m going to give you a number of questions and I absolutely guarantee that you will improve all of your relationships and do business better if you just ask a handful of questions.”   

Ducking and diving his way through a series of narratives, the UK-based speaker demonstrated lessons learnt from studying psychology, working in sales at Proctor & Gamble, leading his advertising agency to achieve billings of £48 million, and his decision to become a professional speaker on the subject of the psychology of persuasion and influence.

But what was that ‘number one killer question’ that Nissan salesman neglected to ask? Simply: “what is the most important thing to you about a car, Mr Hesketh?” By failing to ask, Hesketh said the salesman did not discover his client’s need for a larger boot to accommodate books, bags and golf clubs.