The best salespeople ask the most productive selling questions. They ask their questions in a way that gets results. Forget being a military interrogator! Yelling and sleep deprivation won’t work in a sales call. Your questioning strategy is what you need to sell. Here are a few ideas to create your best questioning strategy.
Use persuasive words in your questioning strategy.
The word because is a persuasive word. Robert Cialdini in his book Influence: Science and Practice talks about how using the word because gets compliance increased to well above 90% from 60%. Experiments demonstrated that humans are more likely to comply with a request if a reason is also given, even if that reason makes no sense. The word “because” triggers the automatic compliance response.
You might have to ask tough questions about competitors or pricing information. Incorporate the word because when you ask the question and try to use a valid reason. You could ask about the price they are paying and add because I want to be sure to get you the best price I can. The worst that could happen is a customer could tell you they can’t give you that information. Then you move on to the next question.
A good questioning strategy is to speak confidently when you ask questions.
You might find it difficult to ask some tough questions. As a result you get nervous and your vocal pace and pitch changes. Avoid sounding nervous! Confident speaking is neither too fast nor too slow. You don’t want your voice to get too high which shows nervousness. Preparation is the best way to counteract nerves. Know which questions you want to ask and then be ready to listen to the answers.
Certainly ask for your customer to tell you more when a customer tells you something that could lead you to more information. Good salespeople will hear when it is the perfect time to probe more. They get more information than other less skilled salespeople who simply don’t dig deep enough.
Ask questions to uncover problems or needs that you can address by selling your products.
Ineffective salespeople ask questions that are irrelevant to the sale of their products or services. An engaging conversation with a customer about sports is not a sales conversation. Start the sales conversation with an open-ended question that requires your customer to talk about his business. An example would be “How do you select the consultants you work with?” What you are listening for are areas that might be a challenge for your customer where you and your expertise could provide a benefit to your client.
Ask about what is difficult or challenging for your customer to achieve if you don’t hear that. Be sure that the problem is important to solve. Learn what consequences exist for your customer and his business when he doesn’t solve the problem. That’s where selling your product is the solution.
Listening is an important selling skill. It’s not enough for successful selling. Your sales will increase with both effective listening skills and an effective questioning strategy.