Summary: Asking Sales Questions Is The Key In sales, asking the right sales questions can make all the difference in the world. Your ability to provide your customers with the right solution to their problems is key to sales success. To find that solution, you need to know how to ask the right questions. Ask the right questions, and they’ll tell you exactly what you need to do to make the sale. A long time ago I heard something that has stock with me to this day. That was that two most important parts of the sales process are your ability to: Ask the right questions. The ability to listen. Yet when I observe struggling salespeople, the ones not reaching their full sales potential. I find three thing that are missing? Their ability to ask the right questions, ask them at the right time, and their ability to shut up and listen to what the prospect has to say. A successful sales call should be about 30% asking questions and talking and roughly 70% listening. Another way that I have heard it described is that you have two ears and one mouth. That means you listen twice as much as you speak. Why is it important to learn how to structure your sales questions: You use sales questions to gain or maintain control during the sales call. If you use sales questions properly, they have to follow where you want them to go. The proper use of questions also helps you to isolate areas of interest. By asking questions, you will find out what the prospect is interested in. If you know what they are interested in or need. You can then provide the solution they are looking for and better position them to buy. You use questions in sales to help acknowledge a fact. When you state a fact in the form of a question, and the response is positive, you have agreement. Use sales questions to receive minor agreements. Selling is the sum total of a series of yeses, that lead to the final decision to own or use your service. A minor agreement will also define the area(s) in which they have the most interest. Not everyone buys your products or services for the same reasons. By asking questions, you will find out why they will want what you have to offer. Use sales questions to arouse and control emotions. Emotions are the thinking that you must arouse in the prospect. If they can’t get excited about what you have to offer, they will not buy. They have to feel that they must own the product. Use sales questions to isolate objections. You must isolate their objections to understand the real stumbling blocks to the sale. A skilled salesperson knows the prospect will have objections to buying their product or service. But the also know that most objections are just a reaction and not real. You need to find the objections that are important to the buying decision and focus on what is most important to the prospect. To do that, you have to use sales questions. You don't answer objections by telling. You answer them by asking. The key to handling objections is best done when you ask the right questions that allow the prospect to positively answers their own objection. Recommended Reading The Sales Bible: The Ultimate Sales Resource” by Jeffrey Gitomer. Dale Carnegie in his Sales Advantage Program said this is one of the top ten books every salesperson should read. This is the revised addition. As I look on my book shelf, I have the first addition of this book which was published in 2003. This is one of those books that comes along not too often. Like how to master the art of selling by Tom Hopkins, this covers all the bases. If you only have two books on sales, this should be one of them. Appointment setting, using questions, handling objections and of course closing. I highly recomend this on. Buy it now on Amazon. The Sales Bible: The Ultimate Sales Resource, Revised Edition Check Our Sales Management Workshop Podcast Check out Sales Management Workshop.
