Transcript Better Sales Questioning Strategies

Better Sales Questioning Strategies
Julia King Tamang
LERN P TACE P 2009
The importance of listening
• Over 90% of today’s sales
are made after the 5th
attempt.
• Only 10% of today’s sales
people will go that far.
--Sales Management Association
Sales questioning strategies
• Open-ended questions & closed-ended
questions
– Open-ended can be answered with
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Feelings
Attitudes
Beliefs
Philosophy
Opinions
Values
– Closed-ended are answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no;
or a specific fact
Examples
• Closed-ended
– “Who is your current
provider of ESL training?”
• Open-ended
– “How do you feel about your
current provider of ESL
training?”
– What do you look for in an
ESL training provider?
Directive questions
• Directive questions are used when
you want to guide the prospect to
a response you want -- a yes or no
answer -- to move both parties to
a quick understanding.
– For example: "Is a money-back
guarantee on our product
important to you?"
Directive questions
• The following two questions are
extremely valuable
– 1. "May I ask what you like the most
about ...?"
– 2. "Would it be fair to ask what you
liked least about ...?"
Two other kinds of questions
• Information gathering
– Open-ended
– Probing
– Confirming
• Anxiety raising
– What’s the cost of not taking action soon?
– Are you confident that cutting the time in
half will get you the result you want?
– I have other clients that are having high
turnover this year. Are you?
Questioning strategy
• Start the info gathering process with
open-ended questions
• If you have to ask a close-ended
question, follow it with an open-ended
question
• Ask more open-ended questions than
closed-ended ones
You can develop a ‘personal
questioning strategy list’
• Why should you have a list of
questions?
• They help you get control of
the sales process
• They help you maintain the
prospect’s attention
• They help you avoid rejection
• They help you uncover
opportunity and resistance
You can develop a ‘personal
questioning strategy list’
• They help keep you from talking too
much
• They help you discover buying motives
• They help you discover the prospect’s
personality and buying style
The BEST questions
•Keep the CLIENT talking, not you
•Generate 3 pieces of data or more
– “Can you say the top 3 things you hope
will be accomplished with this training?”
After you ask, restate what you heard so
you can verify accuracy…or…
“What if I capture our conversation today
in an email and get back to you so we
can be sure I have understood?”
Creating your
own
questions list