Tool Box
Issue No. 39 - February/March 2008
How to ask the right sales questions
by Craig Stubing
The best salespeople are opportunity-identifiers and/or problem-solvers working to help their customers.
To do this they must locate and respect their customer’s buying triggers, those being their customer’s ‘hot buttons’, ‘cold button’ and ‘sore points’. (A hot button is a point of interest or concern to the customer – something they want to hear more about and will buy; a cold button is a point of no interest or concern to the customer – something they don’t want to hear about and won’t buy; a sore point is an aspect of their current situation that they are unhappy with and would like to have fixed.)
A salesperson can identify a customer’s buying triggers only by asking well-planned and well rehearsed questions (and listening to the answers).
Here are some tips that can help with this process.
Avoid using Yes/No questions
An amusing way to illustrate this point is to examine the classic old-time greeting ‘How yer goin’? Orright?’ In this greeting the greeter asks an information-seeking question ‘How are you going?’ Then immediately turns it into a Yes/No question by asking ‘All right?’ Little wonder that the answer is monosyllabic and the conversation dies.
Information-seeking questions generally keep the conversation rolling. Therefore, whether the situation is social or business it’s best to use information-seekers whenever possible.
Information-seeking questions start with words like Who, What, When, Where, Which, Why and How.
Most, if not all, Yes/No questions can be turned in to information-seekers with a little thought. ‘Did you have a good weekend?’ can become ‘How was your weekend?’ ‘Have you tried such-and-such?’ can become ‘What have you tried so far?’
Tee up the question before asking it
This is a lesson many TV and radio i...
