sales tips & articles

Questioning or probing as it is also known, is one of the most important skills you can learn when dealing with prospects and customers. The ability to ask questions that uncover important information about a prospect’s needs, current supply and willingness to change is a strong characteristic of a ‘consultative’ selling approach.

When you ask ‘thinking, open style’ questions it can help you to win new business much quicker and with fewer objections. Additionally, when you help prospects to think about the needs of their business and to really think about current or potential problems or challenges they may face, they start to see you differently and understand the value you can add to them or their business.

This style of questioning provides an opportunity to investigate the prospect's strategies and goals, allowing you to align your product/service with the achievement of their business objectives.

Many prospects have a reluctance to change and think that the way they are doing things is fine. So when you try and tell them what to do or tell them what they are doing is wrong, they can offended and stop listening. However, if you ask questions that ‘probe’ into uncover hidden problems, needs or frustrations, it helps the prospect to realise, that it might be worthwhile investigating this with you further.

As I’ve discussed previously in my article “Are you asking questions that make your prospects think?” there are 2 types of questions: open questions and closed questions. It is very easy to get caught up in asking closed questions, which means you will have to ask a lot of questions to get the information you need and the prospect may feel as though they are being interrogated. Instead, ask open questions, that lets the prospect freely answer and provide you with whatever information they think you need, you can then clarify this by using closed questions.

Open questions need to be asked at different stages of the sale and for different purposes. There are:

• Information Gathering Questions such as:

‘What do you think is causing the low morale?’
‘How many do you think you’ll be wanting?’

• Opinion Finding Questions such as:

‘What do you think of that idea?’
‘How does that sound?’

It is better to say, ‘How often does that happen?’ (open) rather than ‘Does that happen often?’ (closed)

• Closing Questions or asking for commitment:

‘How many would you like; 120 or 130?’
‘When will you have an hour for a presentation?’
‘Is there anyone else who would benefit from being in the presentation?’
‘When would you like to begin, this week or next week?’

At the end of the sale when you are asking for commitment, use might like to use alternatives rather than open questions. For example ‘How many will you need; 100 or 150?’ rather than ‘How many do you need?’

Open questions are used to gather information, closed questions are used to qualify this information and to ensure you have the correct understanding of the situation. This means that you will need to really ‘listen’ and pay attention to the answers for hidden or unclear problems, frustrations, desires and needs.

Happy Selling !

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses and sales teams to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.


 

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The purpose of the first meeting or discussion is to build rapport with your potential client and uncover as much relevant information about the business and their needs. It is also a chance for you to provide a brief introduction to your business and its benefits. Your goal is to determine if there is a need for or interest in your products and services and to get progress the sale to the next stage.

It is a well known fact that ‘people buy people’; we always deal with people we know, like and trust. For this reason it is always recommended that (where possible) you meet with prospects and customer in person to discuss their requirements. Additionally, when you meet prospects face to face it will not only help speed up the sale process but will help you to get more people saying yes.

The objective of the meeting is to determine ‘is there a need or interest for your product or service and would they be interested in receiving pricing?’

The way to determine this is through questioning, however, having purpose and a basic outline to your meetings will help you to stay on track, improve your confidence and keep to the objective.

When you meet with or talk to your prospects for the first time, it is important to include:

• The purpose of the meeting and what you would both like to achieve
• An introduction and background on your business and it’s benefits
• Questions that will help the prospect or customer realise a ‘need’ or desire to improve
• A call to action that progresses the sale to the next stage i.e. preparing a quote or proposal
• The next step

When you know this information you are ‘qualifying’ the prospect to ensure there is a need and interest in progressing the sale, however, it will also identify (very early in the sales process) if there is no need or interest, which is OK too. It is always better to know this after the first meeting so you don’t waste valuable time and effort chasing prospects that have little to no interest in using your products and services.

Note

It is important to include an introduction and background on your business that explains the benefits and value you can add and that gives prospects the confidence to do business with you. Your prospects may not directly ask you but they want to know how long you have been in business (or in the industry) and whether you are still going to be there in 6 months time. When you cover this information in your first interactions it will reduce objections and delays later on in the sales process.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and virtual sales management.


 

If you liked this article, subscribe to our monthly Sales Success ezine. You will learn...

* Easy ways to increase your sales and grow your business
* Simple strategies to sell yourself, even if your not in sales
* How to generate sales easier and quicker!

Enter your details at the top of the page or click here