How To Handle The "What Is It?" Question...

Network Marketing legend Tim Sales regularly answers business questions submitted by his readers. And this time around he tackles how to answer the common question, "What is it?"

Obviously, when you know how to handle questions and objections "effectively" and smoothly, your business becomes profitable. And that's when it starts to get really fun!

How To Handle The "What Is It?" Question

Sometimes, when you're speaking with a prospect, things seem to be going well and then they hit you with "What is it?". Like they just want you to get to the point. Or maybe they're just really curious. It may seem like this is an easy question to answer.

But it's not. If you answer it the wrong way, by telling the prospect all about your business too soon, it could, and most likely will, backfire on you and cause the prospect to lose interest.

So, it's important to know how to answer this question the right way. Obviously how you answer it depends on what context the prospect asks it in. You would respond differently to "What is it?" if your prospect answered an ad for a home based business versus if you were chatting with someone in a social setting and mentioned that you've started a new business.

By the way, I'm going to show you how to answer this question from the perspective that you are using the Inviting Formula and are inviting a prospect to view some information that will help them achieve what they've stated they need, want or don't want (the Inviting step of the Inviting Formula).

If you're not familiar with the Inviting Formula, you first Greet the prospect and then Qualify them to find out what they need, want or don't want. Then you Invite them to review information that will help them achieve what they've said they need, want or don't want.

If this (What is it?) question is going to come up, it most commonly will come up in the Invite step of the formula.

As I described in the January 17 newsletter, I use a Question and Objection Remedy Formula. These are the basic steps you need to know that will make you able to handle any objection that comes up - smoothly and certainly. This formula is described in detail in Professional Inviter.

The first step is to listen all the way through the question or objection. The second step is to confirm your understanding of their question.

You see, you could have just asked a prospect to watch a video and then they ask, "What is it?" So their question could be, "What is the video?" Or it could be "What is the business?"

That is the reason you must do step two of the Remedy. You can confirm your understanding of their question by simply asking, "What is what?" Or "I'm sorry, I didn't understand your question."

Once they explain it, do step three of the Remedy Formula by validating what they say or ask. You do this by simply saying something like "Oh okay - thanks for the question." Or, "Now I understand - thank you."

Then the next step of the remedy is to handle or facilitate handling the question or objection. So as an example, let's say their question is "What is the video?" You would then handle this question by saying something like, "John, based on you telling me that you want to get a sailboat and cruise the Caribbean islands, it reminded me of a video I've seen that will help you accomplish that. You'll understand once you've seen it. Let me get this to you - write down this web address."

This would both handle the objection as well as accomplish the last step of the remedy which is to return to the Inviting formula step you were on when the question or objection came up.

By saying, "Let me get this to you - write down this web address" you're returning to the Inviting step of the formula.

If their question was, "What is the business?", you could handle this one by saying something like: "I genuinely appreciate your interest in knowing what it is, and if I thought I could summarize it in a few sentences I would," (question clarified and made valid) "however, time wise it will be more productive to both of us for you to watch the online movie. Then you and I can have a more intelligent conversation about it. Read me the web address I gave you- I want to make sure I gave it to you correctly."