How Awkward is it for You to Ask Questions?
How Awkward is it for You to Ask Questions?
Are you asking questions that you could easily already know the answer to? If you are that’s a big annoying mistake. Contrary to popular belief not all people just love talking about themselves, and business owners and upper executives have no patience for educating you.
Are you asking irrelevant questions? These are questions that have no bearing on the actual sales conversation. While you may think these questions are helping you establish rapport they may just be annoying the other person because they aren’t giving you an appointment so you can waste their time.
How much time do you spend on background questions rather than questions that help both you and the prospect gain clarity about their problem? If you aren’t one of the top sales people you probably ask mostly background questions when you really should be asking more questions about problems. You’re probably a little afraid the prospect won’t want to share the answer to those questions with you, but you’re wrong.
The reason a sale happens is because the buyer has a perceived problem, and they believe your product or service is a solution to that problem. This is just as true for high end seemingly unnecessary services as it is for commodities. A buyer will purchase a commodity with little if any thought, but they will not purchase an expensive product or service as easily.
That means both you and the prospect must have clarity about the prospect’s perceived problem. The prospect may have agreed to meet with you because they’re just in the beginning stages of gathering information to determine if they really want to make this purchase. Your job is to help them find out exactly why they want to make that purchase, and why they want to make that purchase now.
Then your questions need to take the prospect beyond the problem mind set and expand on how your solution would benefit them in ways they may not have thought about. As you do that their motivation to complete the sale increases because your questions help them become emotionally invested in the purchase while also providing the logical reason for taking action now. But you have one more step you have to take in your questioning process.
Finally, you have to help them determine how your solution is really more valuable to them than the money you’re asking them for in exchange. As you expanded on how your solution benefits the prospect in ways they hadn’t thought about you began uncovering this on at least a qualitative level. Now through your questioning help them to quantitatively determine the value of your solution. As soon as they realize the value of your solution is less than the money you’re asking, you have a sale.
How Awkward is it for You to Ask Questions - To learn more about this author, visit Cheryl A. Clausen's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
Maybe you aren't asking the right questions in the right order for the right reasons? Asking the right questions is definitely a skill and the best sales people are very adept at it. Most sales people ask the easy questions that don’t promote their sales success.
Are you asking questions that you could easily already know the answer to? If you are that’s a big annoying mistake. Contrary to popular belief not all people just love talking about themselves, and business owners and upper executives have no patience for educating you.
Are you asking irrelevant questions? These are questions that have no bearing on the actual sales conversation. While you may think these questions are helping you establish rapport they may just be annoying the other person because they aren’t giving you an appointment so you can waste their time.
How much time do you spend on background questions rather than questions that help both you and the prospect gain clarity about their problem? If you aren’t one of the top sales people you probably ask mostly background questions when you really should be asking more questions about problems. You’re probably a little afraid the prospect won’t want to share the answer to those questions with you, but you’re wrong.
The reason a sale happens is because the buyer has a perceived problem, and they believe your product or service is a solution to that problem. This is just as true for high end seemingly unnecessary services as it is for commodities. A buyer will purchase a commodity with little if any thought, but they will not purchase an expensive product or service as easily.
That means both you and the prospect must have clarity about the prospect’s perceived problem. The prospect may have agreed to meet with you because they’re just in the beginning stages of gathering information to determine if they really want to make this purchase. Your job is to help them find out exactly why they want to make that purchase, and why they want to make that purchase now.
Then your questions need to take the prospect beyond the problem mind set and expand on how your solution would benefit them in ways they may not have thought about. As you do that their motivation to complete the sale increases because your questions help them become emotionally invested in the purchase while also providing the logical reason for taking action now. But you have one more step you have to take in your questioning process.
Finally, you have to help them determine how your solution is really more valuable to them than the money you’re asking them for in exchange. As you expanded on how your solution benefits the prospect in ways they hadn’t thought about you began uncovering this on at least a qualitative level. Now through your questioning help them to quantitatively determine the value of your solution. As soon as they realize the value of your solution is less than the money you’re asking, you have a sale.
How Awkward is it for You to Ask Questions - To learn more about this author, visit Cheryl A. Clausen's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 | |
 |
No article feedback found. |
| |
Leave Your Feedback |
 | |
| |||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. |
 | |
|  |
Subscribe to Cheryl's articles
 | |
|
|  |
 | |
|
| |
 | ||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
| ||
 |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
|
|
 |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
 |
"Learn straight from Evan how you can Make a Full Time Income (And More) from a Website"
Click Here To Learn More |
|
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
|
 |
 Instant Scripts Disciplines of Success Optimus Performance Exit Interview Document Biography |
|
 | ||
 |
Top 50 Geek Business Blogs
Top 50 Geek Business Blogs | |
 |
Top 50 SEO Posts - 2007
Top SEO Posts of the Year | |
| ||
 | ||||
| ||||
|
| ||||
| ||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
|
|
|
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||