Bernie Cornfeld was the founder of one of the earliest and most successful mutual fund companies. His famous question, one that he loved to ask investors was, Do you sincerely want to be rich?

Its more than a nice question, or a clever one.

Its what I call, a perfect question. PQs are exceedingly powerful, and it is worth all of the energy that you can muster to develop them.

Theyre nothing less than super shortcuts to sales.

Usually, youll need an entire scaffold of questions in a sales presentation to support the following propositions:

(1) The client has a need;

(2) The need is important; and

(3) The client should choose you to fulfill it.

PQs tend to produce these three perceptions all at once.

Consider Cornfelds masterpiece: Do you sincerely want to be rich?

First, it asks if the person wants riches, the sincerely word probes how much, and the entire package encourages the listener to prove his eagerness, to say, Heck, yes! as in, the sooner the better!

This makes the salespersons job a lot easier. All he has to do is show the person how to get what he wants.

Youve probably stumbled upon PQs without knowing it. Typically, a client who has heard one will stop in his tracks and say, while mulling it over, Thats a good question!

In future articles Ill share more examples, some of which have worked beautifully for my clients, and for me.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman 2006