There's a lot of weight on the first question on a sales call, and for good reason.

It dictates the direction of the call.

And what you'll notice, it's surprisingly easy to guide a prospect along the path that you want them to go down.

The two main paths being:

• Pain avoidant/0-1
  • What they're trying to get away from
  • Everything that is wrong
  • Where it hurts
• Aspirational/abundant/1-100
  • Where they want to go
  • What they want to achieve
  • What success looks like to them

Yet, most sales pros get into the middle of the call, they're not quite sure how they got there and don't really know how to get back.

Most of the time, it goes back to that first question.

I call it "The Can Opener," but everyone has their own version.

This question can be positive, negative, or neutral.

Positively geared will push the prospect to talk about everything they want to achieve.

Negatively geared will push them to speak about everything they're trying to get away from.

A neutral question will allow them to self-select, letting you know from the beginning what type of prospect they are, and how they're motivated.

For this, I'll provide examples.

Let's say you're selling a marriage coaching offer.

You work with men who know they're not showing up as the husband they need to be.

Negatively geared can opener:

"What's the biggest challenge you're facing in your marriage right now?"

See how this pushes them towards everything that's wrong?

AKA — Pain

They'll tell you how unhappy they are, how much they argue with their partner, how their kids don't talk to them, the negatives.

This works especially well if you're selling to a market who are already agitated.

They feel the problem.

Positively geared can opener:

"Let's pretend we did decide to work together, what does your ideal marriage look like in 12–18 months?" (whatever the term of the program is)

They will tell you how they want to be happy, they can clearly communicate with their wife, they can laugh and play with their kids, they are the dad and husband they want to be.

All of the good stuff.

And you can build from here.

This is a great choice when you're selling to a higher-level market.

People who have been through a lot of sales calls and spot the pain question right away.

People who are already in a great position, but are motivated by being in an even better one.

Neutral can opener:

"From what you watched/saw about us before this call, what was most relevant to you?"

They will tell you right away where they're at, what stood out to them.

What prompted them to book.

It might be positive, it might be negative, it doesn't matter.

You have a start point with them that they recognize, something that is relevant and they can feel.

You build from there.

I always try and start from a point of most relevance to them.

These are just a few examples of questions, you can create 10–15 different versions of each and see what hits.

Test and test some more.

How do you use this?

When you switch between clients, you're going to be selling to different avatars.

They aren't one and the same, so you need to be able to adapt.

Adding to that point, you can have multiple different avatars on the one offer.

Different funnels, VSLs, or even time of year.

You need to be able to meet them where they are, and go from there.

If you already know exactly what type of avatar you sell to, pick the best question from here.

If you don't, test these out on your calls over the coming weeks and assess the results you get.