The question that saved my biggest sale...

Hey {{first_name|team}},

Quick confession before we get going. Yesterday I fat fingered the email software and sent you an early draft of this email. I am actually still not sure how I did that - but you have my apologies - and here's the real one!

This week is about two words. They've done more for my paycheck than any closing technique I've ever been taught. So Simple: "What else?"

Last week we worked on discovery and the two-or-three things question that opens it up. This week we're going to stay right there and dig, because the first answer your customer gives you is almost never the one that's going to earn you the business. And in the Film Room below, I'll tell you the whole story of the day I used exactly this, word for word, and walked out with the biggest deal of my career to that point.

Here's what most of us do. We ask a question, the customer gives us one answer, and the second we hear about something we sell, we're off to the races. We're nervous, we want to prove we belong in the room, so we start explaining everything we know. And the one person who could tell us exactly how to earn the business can't get a word in.

When they give you that first answer, thank them for it, write it down, and ask, "What else?" Then ask it again, and again, until it's just about to get a little weird or you run out of time. Keep it a conversation, not an interrogation, and read the room as you go.

Brian Tracy makes the case in The Psychology of Selling that if you keep asking what else, the last one or two things a customer tells you are usually the ones that could motivate him most. The surface answers come first because they're easy to say. The real one is usually sitting at the bottom of the list, and you'll see exactly how that played out for me in the Film Room below.

Once the what-elses run dry, don't start pitching. Look back over your notes and find the one that sounds like it cost him something, then say, "Tell me more about that." Remember from last week's issue that people change for pain, fear, or opportunity, and pain is the strongest of the three. If he hands you a feeling word along the way, run the Echo and hand it right back to him.

Price is almost always the first answer, because it's the easiest one to give. Don't argue with it and don't run from it. Write it down and ask this: I know cost will always be a consideration, that is a given… in addition that - what else. Don’t let them get stuck on the lazy answer my friend. It is never ONLY about cost.

If price is still standing at the end of the list, you've earned the right to work it with the A-C-A-V-E play from issue 3, and you'll be working it with a whole lot more information than the rep who stopped at one answer.

And something else happens when you do this. As I said back in issue 2, you're always training your customers how to treat you. Every time you ask what else, you're teaching him you're not the rep who shows up and settles for the surface answer. You don't need a big book of fancy questions or 101 ways to close a deal. You just need to be curious enough to keep asking.

Tuesday's close, October 20: December corn finished at $4.62/bu, down 5¢, and November soybeans were $12.48¼/bu, down 5¼¢. December Chicago wheat took the hardest hit at $6.43¼/bu, down 12¢. The livestock side had a good day. December live cattle finished at $230.17/cwt, up $2.15, November feeder cattle were $346.30/cwt, up $2.37, and December lean hogs were $67.15/cwt, up 80¢. November Class III milk closed at $18.09/cwt, up 39¢. November crude oil eased back to $101.79 a barrel, down $1.87, but that's still a hundred-dollar barrel. These are futures, not the bid at his elevator or sale barn. Source: Brownfield Ag News, October 20 closing report.

Here's the backdrop. Harvest caught up some this past week but it's still behind. USDA's Monday report had soybeans 64 percent harvested, up 18 points in a week and right at the five-year average, while corn was only 44 percent out of the field, 8 points behind normal, with Iowa and Ohio among the slowest. Corn export sales sit at about 25 percent of what USDA expects for the year, when the usual pace by now is closer to 34 percent, and December corn has lost about 21¢ in a week. Beans are the bright spot, with a 612,000 ton sale to China reported Tuesday morning on top of Monday's sales. Source: Total Farm Marketing daily summary, October 20.

What it means for you this week: your customer is tired, behind, watching his crop get cheaper, and looking at crude over a hundred dollars, which tells him exactly what diesel and next year's inputs are going to feel like. So when you sit down with him about 2027, the first thing out of his mouth is going to be price, and he's going to mean it. Good. Write it down and still ask what else. He’s still gonna put a crop in the ground. You might as well be the one helping figure out HOW to do it.

It might be the help he couldn't find, the field that didn't dry down, the cattle he's not sure he can afford to keep, or a product that didn't pull its weight. In a tight-margin year, the rep who gets past the first answer is the one who gets to help him solve the real problem, and that's the rep he remembers when he's placing orders.

This week the tape goes back about 20 years, to the meeting I told you about last week, where I almost got shown the door. I want to finish that story, because the part I skipped is the part that matters.

I was about 28, sitting outside the office of Dr. Steve Pollman, who was running Murphy-Brown at the time and was something of a legend in the pig business. My palms were sweating, I'd driven four hours to get there, and it was one of my first solo shots at an organization that big. About five minutes in, it hit me that he thought I was somebody else entirely. He wasn't there to talk about training or people development at all. I was going to get dismissed - and have to drive 4 hours home thinking about it!

But before he could show me the door, I mustered the courage and remembered my training. I said, "Steve, every time I sit down with someone like you, there are almost always two or three things on their mind when it comes to developing their people. I'm just curious, what are those two or three things for you?"

And then I shut up.

And (seemingly) miraculously, he started answering my question. When he finished, I asked him what else was on his mind, and he gave me one more. I asked again, and he gave me another. We went around four or five times like that until we finally got to the thing that mattered most, the one that was laced with pain. It was the language barrier they were running into when training Spanish-speaking employees on the farrowing process.

So I asked him to tell me more about that. We ended up talking for the next 45 minutes about how a misunderstanding in training can cost a company like that millions. I walked out of there with permission to write a proposal, and that proposal turned into the largest deal I had sold to date.

You see, it's stuff like this that makes the difference. A simple question or two, and a willingness to actually follow a process in sales. When you wing it, you may get lucky on occasion, but you can never truly know whether you're building a repeatable process that will keep your family fed month after month. (I still need to hear that every day as much as anyone, by the way.)

Three things:

Want reps before the real thing? Practice the conversation with Jericho first. And if you want to hear me tell the Pollman story out loud, it's Day 5 in the Playbook in audio.

And the one you'll hear from me every week. You are always training your customer how to treat you. The rep who pounces on the first answer is teaching him to give short ones. The rep who asks what else is teaching him that around here, we get to the real thing. Pick which one you want to be known for.

Every play we've run so far has its own one-page printable, with the words to say right on it. "What else?" lives on the Discovery card, so if it's not on your wall yet, this is the week to print it and tape it up where you'll see it before your first call of the day. Missed an issue? Catch up here:

If your email app hides the downloads, just reply with the word PRINTABLES and I'll send you the set.

If you lead a team and something in here hit a nerve, I'd love to hear what's going on. Maybe your reps keep stopping at the first answer, or every conversation this fall is ending up at price. Grab some time with me and tell me what you're seeing. No slide deck, just a real conversation about your team.

And if you're planning a 2027 sales meeting, dealer event, or annual conference, I'm booking speaking dates now. Send me a note and let's talk about what your people need to hear.

Go run the play. Be safe out there this harvest, and ask one more question than feels comfortable.

Grow your momentum,

Mark Jewell
The Momentum Company

P.S. Many of you are opting in to get the Playbook in audio. It's a series sent to your phone by text one morning at a time, and each one gives you a play you can run that same day. Text PLAYS to 984-282-1124 and your first one will be waiting. And if there's a rep on your team who needs this, send them the signup link.