A LEADING QUESTION

By Hank Trisler

 

Asking hard questions will make you money by making you more sales.  

Open questions often start with "who," "what," "when," "where," "why" or "how" and usually get more informative responses than closed questions, which can often be answered "yes," or "no."

In my effort to avoid stifling creative thought by providing too much in the way of specific questions, I may have withheld some valuable information. This was driven home to me by reading an article by a fellow named Tom Goetschius, whose name I won’t even attempt to pronounce. He gave some specifics, which I thought terrific. He calls them "High Gain" questions, which cause the customer to think on a higher level in order to answer them. We’ve all used some of these, but I think we need to work on incorporating more hard questions into our dealings with people. The salesperson with the greatest number of good questions has a tremendous competitive advantage.

Let’s look at some and see what they might do for us. Why not see how many sub-questions you can create?

Questions for early on.

• Where in the sales cycle are you?

Have they just started to look? What have they seen? How did they feel about it?

• Would you please describe the circumstances that lead to you coming in here today?
• What do you hope will happen here today?
• What do you think will happen here today?

I spoke with a fine gentleman just last week. When I asked him what he hoped would happen, he said that he hoped I’d be able to help him help his people sell better. Does that tell me a bit about his positive frame of mind?

When asked what he thought was going to happen, he said that he thought we were going to make a deal. We already had.

• Out of all the (fill in the blank) you could have gone to, why did you choose us today?

I sold Chevrolets in the sixties with a guy named Ernie Mann. He asked this of every customer and was the top salesman in our store. You’ll be amazed at what you’ll hear.

• If you could communicate with me the most important rule about dealing with you, in one word, what would that word be?
• What would surprise you the most about what might happen here today?
• What is the most serious mistake salespeople have made in dealing with you?
• What’s the one thing you really hope does NOT happen here today?
• What part of your present situation do you hope I can improve today?

As we progress.

People treat us the way we have trained them to treat us. The more we listen to our customers, the more they will talk to us and the better we can help them. We can also progress from easy questions to harder questions. Remember, long questions tend to get us longer answers.

• What would you list as your top three priorities?
• What’s the one thing you want to accomplish before your race is run?
• How have your priorities changed in the past five years?
• How do you think they might change in the next five?
• What is the one experience you really hope your family has a chance to share together?
• What significance has (fill in the blank) had in your life up to now?
• What is the one thing you would like to do that you’re not doing now?
• If you could change just one thing about your (sales force, home, car, process) what would that be?

Out of the need-finding phase and into the
presentation of benefits. Don’t tell--ask and listen.

• How do you think this might improve your_______?
• How would you see yourself using this feature?
• What’s the one thing you like best about this?
• I can’t quite read you on this point. How does it appeal to you?
• I sense that you’re pleased with this feature. How do you think it will benefit you?
• Tell me how you really feel about this.
• When you looked this over, what did you notice first? Why was that?
• I sense that you’re unsure about this. Why is that?
• What do you specifically like the most?
• How many possible ways can you think of to use this?
• When you consider the next few years, what’s the most important part of this program?

In search of commitment. The questions get harder, and harder to ask.

• How would your life change if you decided to do this today?
• What would be the worst-case scenario if you decided to do this today?
• What do you fear the most about going ahead with this today?
• What part of the program makes you feel most uncomfortable?
• What is the one major way in which this program differs from what you are presently doing?
• How will you know when you have found the right solution for your _______?
• If you thought that this _____ was really the best for you, what is the major obstacle standing in the way of you owning it?
• What are you spending your money on that has a higher priority than______?

If you send out 100 letters soliciting business and no one replies, that’s not too bad.

If you make 100 telephone calls and no one wants to talk to you, that’s worse. The rejection factor is mounting.

If you make 100 face-to-face presentations and no one buys, the rejection is pretty tough to deal with and if you go home and your spouse has moved, it’s nearly unbearable.

The higher the potential for rejection gets, the closer we are to a payoff. When you’re finding it tough to ask a question, it’s a fair bet the customer is finding it tough to answer it. 

Press on, keep asking questions and your sales will continue to improve.