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Sales Skills For Service Professionals Part 1

Written by: Sandy Schussel

Article Overview: The first of three skills every professional or sales professional needs to hone is the ability to ask provocative questions.

Sales Skills For Service Professionals Part 1

To be truly successful at getting clients, your passion for your firm's work must be accompanied by mastery of three skills:

(1) The ability to ask provocative questions
(2) The ability to listen with total focus on the client
(3) The ability to relate moving stories and metaphors

Let’s focus on the first of these skills.

1. The ability to ask provocative questions. If you've found your prospective client (we'll call him or her a "prospect") backing away, it is likely that you have made the common mistake of cutting the questioning process short. You may have jumped to the solution you provide too early.

If you're like most professionals, before talking about your services, you ask informational questions--who, what, where, when, how and why. While you need this information to understand how you can help your prospect, it is more valuable to you than it is to him or her. The prospect already has this information.

Sometimes, your informational questions bring up a need, concern or problem--maybe even one that the prospect didn't know he or she had. Maybe the prospect is working with someone in your field and is having some problems with the relationship or the results he is getting.

Well, that's what we do, isn't it? We solve problems. And there they are.

As soon as you identify this little bit of trouble in Paradise, you pounce with your solution... and the prospect starts squirming and backing away. Here's an example of a conversation my client, Lisa, a financial advisor, had with a prospect who had been working with another advisor:

Lisa: So you haven't heard from him in over a year and he didn't return your call the last time you tried to reach him? He also hasn't explained any of these things we've been talking about today, right? It sounds like you're not getting the service you need from him. I can promise you that I'll check in with you once a quarter and I return my calls immediately. How about if we transfer these accounts . . .

Prospect: No. I've been working with him for eight years. I think I'll try to talk to him again first and, if he doesn't return my call, I'll get back to you.

The reason this conversation ended as it did, is that the problem Lisa identified is an implied one. Your prospects are always weighing whether their need for a change is explicit and urgent enough that it is worth their while to go through the fuss and bother of moving their accounts or changing their providers.

When there's only a vague sense of a problem, the scale tips in favor of leaving things as they are. To avoid running into a brick wall, you need to move from implied problems to explicit problems. You get your prospects to see the explicit need by asking provocative questions.

Here's how Lisa might sound after working with me, learning to ask better questions:

Lisa: So you haven't heard from him in over a year and he didn't return your call the last time you tried to reach him? He also hasn't explained any of these things we've been talking about today, right? How is this level of service affecting you?

Prospect: It's a little annoying that he can't return my call, but I guess I'm doing okay.

Lisa: Does it concern you that there's no one reassuring you about your retirement or explaining these things to you?

Prospect: Well, actually, that's the reason I agreed to sit down with you. I am concerned that there might be more I should be doing or that I need to change my strategy.

Lisa: And if you continue to get no service or you try him again and maybe he responds this time but doesn't respond next time, will you be okay with that?

Prospect: Well, no. I need to feel that someone is watching out for me. Maybe my account is just too small for him.

Lisa: What's at stake here?

Prospect: This is my life savings we're talking about!

Lisa: Yes, it is your life savings. Does it make more sense to you to wait and see--and worry about it all the time, or to try working with someone who is promising to be there for you?

Prospect: I really shouldn't wait for it to happen again. Tell me about how you work . . .

To get more clients, ask provocative questions.

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Article Tags: informational questions, last time, little bit, metaphors, mistake, passion, prospective client, provocative questions, relationship, trouble in paradise



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